No lockdown but biz ups pressure

Shyam Sundar Vattam | NT

Bengaluru: Ruling out clamping lockdown in the state, Revenue Minister R.Ashok hinted at some good news regarding the weekend curfew after a final meeting to be held on January 21.

As of now, the existing Corona rules will continue till Friday. A final meeting will be held on that day where decisions regarding night curfew and weekend curfew will be taken. However, there could be some good news on Friday with regard to the weekend curfew, he told the media after attending a virtual meeting convened by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai to take stock of the Covid-19 situation in Karnataka on Monday.

Health experts and several ministers attended the virtual meeting to discuss the way forward in the wake of daily Corona positive cases touching more than 30,000. On the other hand, there is pressure from the hospitality industry especially hotels, bars, restaurants, pubs seeking relaxation of rules during weekends following business hitting rock bottom in the last 10 days.

However, health experts are learnt to have advised the government not to relax either weekend curfew or night curfew for the next three to four weeks as Corona cases are likely to reach the peak during the fourth week of this month after which it would decline. Till then the government must be very careful and continue the curbs against the congregation of people to check the spread of the virus. Hitherto, the cases would come from Bengaluru Urban but there has been a spike in cases in over a dozen districts which is a cause of worry for the health department and the state government. Fortunately, the mortality rate has been very much under control and so are hospitalization of cases.

Ashok said the CM and the health minister reviewed the situation and also had a frank discussion with health experts.

They resolved to meet again on Friday with more inputs and then arrive at a decision. Be it curbs on schools, hotels, bars, pubs or public transport, the existing curbs would continue till January 31.