More curbs likely in Karnataka, many Bengaluru apartments containment zones

Karnataka, one of the 10 states that have been warned because of their Covid-19 situation, on Sunday reported 1,875 new infections, higher than the number of people (1,502) who recovered from the disease in the last 24-hours. The Centre on Saturday alerted 10 states as they are reporting either a rise in the number of new cases or an increase in the positivity rate.

The government on Saturday extended the existing restrictions till August 16 and said a decision on night curfew or weekend lockdown will be taken after 15 days, reviewing the progression of the situation. The government has also made negative RT-PCR tests mandatory for people coming to the state from Maharashtra and Kerala. Chief minister Basavaraj Bommai has said stringent border checking and random testing have also begun in the state.

"Resorts - homestay bookings have to be done only after the mandatory procurement of negative RT-PCR report not older than 72 hours," he said.

"I have



reviewed the Covid status of 8 districts today. Last time second waves came from Kerala and Maharashtra. Now again the cases are becoming more in Kerala in the last few days. I have instructed to DCs to take care of it. And the testing unit has to be medical infrastructure has to be improved in these districts. vaccination has to be done," the chief minister said.

In Bengaluru, several residential apartments have become containment zones. This is mostly because people are hiding their travel information, Dr Syed Pervez Ismail of Vasant Nagar's primary health centre told media.

According to reports, there are 108 active micro-containment zones in Bengaluru under Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike. And maximum were added in July as on July 1 the number of micro-containment zones was 44.

Karnataka started seeing the spike only in the last week of July. On July 24, the state reported 1,001 fresh infections. But since then, the case graph is only rising.