Karnataka: Amid rising COVID-19 cases in state, Bommai govt brings back mask mandate

Amid increasing COVID-19 cases, the Karnataka government has again ordered the mask mandate. On Friday, the capital of the state, Bengaluru, recorded close to 95% cases in the state. Overall, the state recorded 525 cases of COVID-19 on Friday, of which 495 cases were in Bengaluru.

The daily Test Positivity Rate (TPR) has also spiked to 2.14%, while the weekly TPR has touched 1.73%. A major sigh of relief was that the state continues to have zero deaths pertaining to COVID-19.

With this new tally, the overall cases in the southern state has risen up to 3,177 while the Bengaluru alone has 3,061 of the state's active cases. Around 228 people were discharged on Friday after COVID-19 treatment whereas 209 people were alone discharged from Bengaluru city. It is important to mention here that the government recorded more than 22,000 tests on Friday of which 2.31% of people tested positive.

The state's health minister Dr Sudhakar announced that masks will be compulsory in the state and also requested people to get vaccinated and those jabbed with both vaccines were requested to take the precautionary dose by the government. 

Vaccination in Karnataka

A large number of people in the state have received both doses of the COVID-19 vaccination. The official numbers as per the government site are 11,00,46,040. Out of the total, 5,45,76,874 people have at least taken a single dose whereas 5,28,34,917 have been administered the second dose of the COVID vaccine. On June 10, 93,579 people were jabbed. 

India began providing precautionary doses to all adults above the age of 18 on April 10 at private vaccination centres. The Serum Institute of India's Covishield and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin are now available for ₹225 per dose. Until now, in the state of Karnataka 26,34,249 have been administered the precautionary dose.