New Delhi: Amid Omicron variant threat, the Karnataka government on Thursday (December 9) decided to focus on cluster management and issue new guidelines to hostels. 


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Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, as quoted by PTI, said, "Regarding COVID, our Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) head Dr M K Sudarshan has informed about the current situation, he has shared details about the Omicron variant. According to him, looking at the current figures and the positivity rate, there is no need for any major concern or worry.”


In order to avoid a “hasty” decision, the state government will take a call regarding strict COVID-19 curbs like night curfew and restrictions on Christmas and New Year celebrations after observing the situation for a week. 


The new guidelines for hostels and management include sanitising, letting people for food in a staggered way, restricting visitors, double dose vaccination for all staff, and setting up a separate isolation room, PTI reported. 


"We have already given similar guidelines for cluster management and have said that if there are more than three positive cases in a place it will be declared clusters, and such measures will continue," the Karnataka CM said. The state will also organise a special vaccination drive. 


The decision was taken in a cabinet meeting held on Thursday in the wake of COVID-19 clusters that have emerged mostly at educational institutions and hostels in several places like Bengaluru, Dharwad, Mysuru, Hassan, Mangaluru, among others. Karnataka has so far reported two cases of the new Omicron variant. 


On Wednesday, Karnataka logged 399 new coronavirus cases and 6 deaths, which pushed the total tally to 29,99,098 and death toll to 38,249. There are presently 7,255 active COVID-19 cases in the state. 


(With agency inputs)


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