COVID-19: International passengers coming to THIS state will have to produce RT-PCR negative certificate

All international passengers coming to Karnataka, irrespective of their COVID-19 vaccination status, will have to produce RT-PCR negative certificate and follow COVID-19 appropriate behaviour, said the state government on Tuesday.

It also added that all the persons arriving from Kerala will also have to compulsorily produce negative RT-PCR certificate not older than 72 hours. Those who have arrived from Kerala in the past two weeks in Karnataka to compulsorily be subjected to RT-PCR test, the Karnataka government added.

The Karnataka government on Tuesday made it mandatory for passengers arriving from South Africa and Brazil to the state to undergo RT-PCR tests and 14 days quarantine in view of two more variants of COVID-19 being identified in these countries. Samples of those in institutional quarantine would be sent to National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences here for genome sequencing, a health department release said.

The RT-PCR test should be done by passengers on arrival at Bengaluru Airport, irrespective of whether they had a negative certificate for the test before boarding the flights. After 14 days of quarantine, the patient would be discharged, subject to two samples tested through RT-PCR, taken 24 hours apart, turning negative, it said.

The government had earlier made it mandatory for all passengers coming from the UK, where a new strain of the virus was detected, to get the RT-PCR test done on arrival.

Karnataka (49.96 per cent) has administered the first dose to less than 50 per cent of registered healthcare workers. The second dose of the coronavirus vaccination drive for frontline and healthcare workers started on Monday.

The state on February 15 clocked 368 new coronavirus cases and two deaths, taking the infection count and toll to 9,45,638 and 12,267 respectively, the health department had said. According to a department bulletin, a total of 9,26,664 people were discharged so far, including 430 on Monday. There were 5,772 active cases in the state which includes 128 in the ICU, the department added.

Bengaluru Urban district reported 258 infections whereas both the fatalities of the day were reported in the city. Cumulatively, the city has reported 4,02,212 infections, 4,430 deaths, 3,93,883 discharges, including 227 on Monday, and 3,898 active cases. According to the bulletin, Tumakuru reported 25 fresh cases today followed by Shivamogga 20, Mandya 19, Hassan 14, Udupi 11, Mysuru and Kalaburagi 10 each.

Cases were also reported in Ballari, Bengaluru Rural, Chikkaballapura, Chikkamagaluru, Chitradurga, Dakshina Kannada, Davangere, Dharwad, and Uttara Kannada. Bidar, Chamarajanagar, Gadag, Kodagu, Kolar, Koppal, Ramanagar, Vijayapura and Yadgir districts recorded nil infection and zero fatality whereas Bagalkote reported one infection and zero fatality.

There were as many as 42,245 tests done on Monday including 40,517 using the RT PCR and other methods taking the total tests done so far to 1.80 crores, the department added. According to the department, 13,840 out of 61,379 targeted COVID warriors were inoculated, which is 23 per cent of the target, on Monday. Cumulatively, 5,10,474 out of 11,10,380 targeted corona warriors, comprising healthcare workers and frontline workers, have been vaccinated, it added.