The next two to three weeks are going to be crucial in preventing the spread of COVID-19 in the State, said Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar.
The Minister explained to the Assembly that there were four different stages in the spread of the disease and presently, Karnataka was in the first and second stages. The examples of countries like Spain and Italy had shown that complacency could derail the entire process. These countries, he said, had initially desisted from declaring lockdowns through a ban on large social gatherings.
“But you know what happened later. The instances of deaths rose within a week in Italy. In fact, that country saw 368 deaths in a single day,” Dr. Sudhakar said.
It’s in this context that the State had continued the lockdown and restrictions on large gatherings till March 31, despite knowing that it would impact the economy in a serious way, the Minister said. “In the interest of the health of people of the State, such a measure is strongly needed even if it means that the economy will be affected,” he maintained.
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Explaining the sensitiveness of the State, the Minister said nearly 20 lakh persons were working in the State’s IT sector that would make them either travel to foreign countries or come in contact with those who have an international travel history. In addition to this, a large number of foreigners were visiting Bengaluru frequently, he pointed out.
The only way to keep the disease from spreading was to ensure social distancing,” Dr. Sudhakar said.
The government wanted to cover more number of people under the test for COVID-19 as presently, the State was testing an average of only 10 persons among a population of 10 lakh, he said. Israel was testing 276 persons for 10 lakh population, while Bahrain had covered 8,354 persons under such tests for the above size of population, he explained.
The State had introduced a system of getting health updates from quarantined persons through automated calling system, under which an automatic calling facility records their health status after a gap of 15 days.
