Karnataka to check if it's okay to seal only a COVID patient's house instead of whole area

In a bid to effectively deal with the Coronavirus spread, Karnataka Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar said that he will ask a high-powered committee on COVID-19 to find out the possibility of whether it is sufficient to impose a lockdown only on an infected person’s house instead of sealing an entire area.

After reviewing the prevailing COVID situation in the Udupi district, the minister said the concept of declaring any area as a containment zone has undergone changes in the last two months.

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"Hitherto, we were declaring the entire area as the containment zone after detection of coronavirus positive cases. Subsequently, the area of the containment zone was reduced from the whole area to a particular street," the Sudhakar said.

"Now, BJP MLA Raghupati Bhat has given a suggestion to seal down a particular house of the positive patient which would be taken up before the high-powered panel. The district administration concerned could supply all essential items to the particular family," he added.

The minister further said that the Central government has been providing all facilities to all the states to deal with the crisis situation.

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COVID-19 cases on the rise in Karnataka

Karnataka on Wednesday reported 267 new COVID-19 cases and one death, taking the infection count to 4,063 and fatalities to 53, as the state witnessed 111 discharges, the health department said. A whopping 250 out of 267 cases are returnees from other states, the majority of them (about 232) from Maharashtra.

Kalaburagi, the district that reported the first COVID-19 death in the country in March, has breached the 500 cases mark, with 105 infections confirmed on Wednesday alone.

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As of June 3 evening, cumulatively 4,063 COVID-19 positive cases have been confirmed in the state, which includes 53 deaths and 1,514 discharges, the health department said in its bulletin. It said out of 2,494 active cases, 2,478 patients are in isolation at designated hospitals and are stable, while 16 are in ICU. According to the bulletin,111 patients were discharged on Wednesday.

A total of 3,34,825 samples have been tested so far, out of which 15,197 were tested on Wednesday alone. According to the bulletin, 3,25,686 samples have reported as negative, and out of these, 14,719 were reported negative.

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(With inputs from ANI)