• Karnataka reports 566 cases on Dec. 29; Bengaluru reports 400
• Central team assessing situation, suggesting remedial action

Bengaluru/Mysuru: The State authorities have clarified that Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai is not in favour of lifting the night curfew, especially on Dec. 31, the New Year’s eve. Reason: Spike in COVID cases where the State yesterday recorded 566 new cases.

Bengaluru alone accounted for 400 cases, pushing the total number of active cases in Karnataka to 7,771. Karnataka stands fourth among the five States in India that have more than 5,000 active cases at present. Kerala is leading the tally followed by Maharashtra and West Bengal. Karnataka has reported five more cases of Omicron, taking the State’s tally to 43.

Following reports in several newspapers that the CM is likely to lift night curfew on Dec. 31, Star of Mysore was flooded with calls this morning where people wanted to know about the curbs in place tomorrow.

Even the CM had hinted yesterday in Hubballi that the Government may take a relook at the night curfew clamped in the wake of opposition mounting from different quarters, especially the hospitality sector which has been reeling under losses.

Many sectors have been requesting the Government to relax the curfew norms at least on Dec. 30 and 31 to allow businesses to see some profit.

Official sources told Star of Mysore this morning in Bengaluru that the Government is unwilling to lift the night curfew. “If at all COVID and Omicron cases come down after Dec. 31, the Government may decide later. But as of now, the night curfew is here to stay,” highly placed sources said.

Yesterday, Karnataka saw a 37.10 percent jump in COVID cases at 566 when compared to Tuesday’s tally of 356. This is the first time since early October that the State has recorded over 500 cases a day. With yesterday’s numbers, the total COVID cases have gone up to 30,05,798 since the beginning of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the multi-disciplinary teams and nodal officers sent by the Union Health Ministry to Karnataka are assessing the situation, suggesting remedial action and submitting a report every evening to the Centre.

The teams are specifically looking into contract tracing, including surveillance, containment operations; COVID-19 testing, including sending of adequate samples from clusters to Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) network for genome sequencing; COVID-19 appropriate behaviour and its enforcement; availability of hospital beds, sufficient logistics including ambulances, ventilators and medical oxygen; and vaccination progress.