Karnataka: 30 Per Cent Covid-19 Cases Linked To Tablighi Jamaat; Free Hand To Police To Rein In Those Disobeying Orders 

Karnataka's Coronavirus tally as of Monday evening stands at 408. Of these, at present, around 30 per cent are linked to the Tablighi Jamaat — 20 are those who attended the the event in Nizamuddin and 103 are contacts of the attendees.

While Kodagu is among one of the three districts in the country that has not reported any fresh cases in the last 28 days and thus, has moved to the green zone, Kalaburagi stays a hotspot with three Covid fatalities and 27 positive cases.

The district, along with Bengaluru and Chitradurga, will be part of the study that the Indian Council of Medical Research will conduct throughout the country to understand the spread of the Coronavirus.

This study will be undertaken through randomised testing and will cover 82 districts in 25 states across the country.

As per reports, this test will be conducted to ascertain if the state is in the stage of community transmission, that is stage 3 of the spread of the virus.

Kalaburagi saw five new cases on Monday, two of which were contacts of a Jamaat attendee. The district had recently made news for conducting a temple festival even amidst lockdown orders.

Fifteen containment zones have been demarcated in the district and over 32,000 house-to-house surveys conducted.

Vijayapura and Mysuru are among the other top districts where the number of Covid cases are on a hike. Of the 18 new cases that the state saw on Monday, 11 were from Vijayapura.

In Mysuru, Nanjanagudu, which is a cluster in the state, saw a total of 2,908 people being quarantined, of whom 1,960 were tested. As many as 69 of these have so far tested positive, as reported.

The state, which was considering easing of lockdown restrictions today, will maintain status quo till 3 May.

This decision was taken at a cabinet meeting on Monday wherein it was also decided to go for an ordinance to amend the Epidemic Diseases Act to allow punitive action to be taken against those who try to deliberately spread the virus.

Capital city Bengaluru saw yet another attack on health workers on Sunday evening at Padarayanapura, with an unruly mob said to have been instigated by a rowdy sheeter.

In this regard, a total of 119 people have been arrested and the Chief Minister has, henceforth, given the police in the state a free hand to deal with those creating issues for the containment of Corona.