Karnataka issues new COVID-19 guidelines ahead of festivals, not in favour of reopening schools for classes 1 to 5

NEW DELHI: The Karnataka government has issued a new set of guidelines in view of the upcoming festival season amid the looming threat of the COVID-19 third wave in the country.

Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Saturday said that the state government will be issuing a set of COVID-19 guidelines in the wake of upcoming festivals and urged the people to follow COVID-appropriate behaviour.

“As far as functions and events are concerned, I have seen guidelines being broken in some of the functions. That’s why, considering all these, new guidelines will be released soon,” CM Bommai said.

Replying to a question on the resumption of schools, the Chief Minister said the state government was still not in favour of reopening schools for classes 1 to 5. 

“No, we have not considered it yet. We will see how things will function with classes 6,7 and 8, and based on that we will take further decisions,” CM Bommai told reporters. 

The remarks from the chief minister came a day after the officials of the health department sealed the Christian Nursing College located in Bengaluru’s Horamavu after 34 students tested Covid positive. 

The state’s health department has been taking all efforts to trace the primary and secondary contacts of the infected persons in the city.

The authorities have sealed the Christian Nursing college campus, including the 100 meters of the surrounding area. The area has been identified as a containment cluster zone. 

The health department has instructed the college authorities to take the responsibility for keeping the students in quarantine for 14 days. The officials are also looking into the submission of fake RT-PCR certificates by students and investigating the matter.

Notably, the Karnataka government has managed to bring down the number of cases in the state from 50,000 to 1000 with great difficulty. On Friday, Karnataka reported 1,220 fresh COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths, pushing the total number of infections to 29,53,064 and the toll to 37,380. 

Earlier last week, the Karnataka government had said that it will continue the night curfew from 9 PM to 5 AM and the weekend curfew from 9 PM on Friday till 5 AM  in Dakshina Kannada (DK) district till September 13. During the curfew period, essential services will be allowed. Moreover, the shops selling essential items will be allowed to function from 6 AM to 2 PM.