BENGALURU: Karnataka has tested the highest number of people for coronavirus in the country, the state government said on Saturday. So far, 731 samples have been processed.
Coronavirus outbreak live updates“On Saturday alone, 92 samples were collected for testing,” said medical education minister K Sudhakar.
No new positive cases have come to light. The state’s figure for coronavirus infections stands at six, including an elderly Kalaburagi man who died this week. The health department said 50 new samples had turned out to be negative. Overall, 590 samples didn’t show any coronavirus infection.
In a new measure, Sudhakar said passengers who showed symptoms on arrival at Karnataka’s airports would be directly taken to the designated hospital. Until now, passengers with suspected symptoms were put under observation and asked to self-isolate at home. The new rule will help the state keep a check on new cases and improve overall surveillance.
The minister praised the medical teams involved in the fight to contain Covid-19: “They have been working tirelessly to screen, test and treat patients.” So far, over 1 lakh passengers have been screened at the state’s airports and seaports.
Offices can function but offer home shift, says deputy CMDeputy chief minister CN Ashwath Narayan, meanwhile, has urged companies to encourage employees to work from home as a precaution to decongest workplaces and accelerate the government’s efforts to mitigate impact of the coronavirus outbreak.
The government’s earlier communication on a weeklong shutdown had created some confusion among business parks and companies about whether they too needed to close. It has now made it clear that workplaces can function, but all efforts must be made to get as many people to work from home as possible.
“Abundant caution is the need of the hour. Employee safety and business continuity are important to the IT business across the state,” Narayan said. “With Karnataka being home to over 35% of the Indian IT workforce, employee safety becomes very important. At the same time, as a leading sourcing hub, business continuity is also important. The state government is making all efforts to work with the industry on both these aspects,”
He said the additional chief secretary in the department of IT/BT, EV Ramana Reddy, had also written to the department of telecommunications (DOT) to enable work from home through modification of other service providers licences (OSPs), and the same had now been accepted. As TOI reported, DoT has relaxed restrictions on OSPs, which include call centres and medical transcript service providers up to April 30. DoT has set these restrictions to ensure that customer data is safe.
Narayan said many firms had put out advisories on nonessential travel and asked employees returning from abroad to undergo self-quarantine. He emphasised the need for deep sterilisation of premises, cancellation of events and internal taskforces to regularly monitor the situation. Health minister B Sriramulu, who was in Kalaburagi, urged people not to panic and continue daily work as usual.
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