Karnataka: Amid a rapid surge in COVID-19 JN.1 variant cases in Karnataka, the state government on Wednesday issued new guidelines and made "home isolation" mandatory for infected patients.

These guidelines come as the state has reported 34 cases of the JN.1 Covid variant as per official data of the Indian Health Ministry. 

Earlier, the state's Health Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao while talking to news agency ANI said, "430 cases are active out of which 400 are in home isolation and the remaining are in hospital. 7-8 patients are in ICU. As of now, things are okay. We have done genome sequencing. There are 34 cases of JN.1 variant of COVID. We are well prepared. Nothing is alarming. the majority of the cases are in Bengaluru

New COVID-19 guidelines:

The state's cabinet sub-committee issued a set of preventive directives including following previous COVID-19 appropriate rules such as wearing masks in public, maintaining social distancing as New Year celebrations approach and seven days of home isolation for infected people.

Furthermore, the government advised the elderly and those with comorbidities to get a  'precautionary vaccine', and decided to procure some 30,000 doses of the Corbevax vaccine from the Centre.

Don't panic: Shivakumar

Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar also urged the public to not panic.

"No need to panic about Covid. Everything is fine now. Our health minister will update."

Karnataka has reported 28 fresh cases and two deaths in the past 24 hours. The active tally stands at 464.