Bengaluru, Dec. 9: Worried over rising number of clusters in various parts of state especially in educational institutes, Karnataka on Thursday decided to issue separate guidelines for hostels and various Covid clusters in the state.
After the cabinet meeting here, Chief Minister, Basavaraj Bommai told reporters that a large number of Covid cases are being detected in hostels, therefore this is right time to issue fresh guidelines for all hostels in the state.
“The Technical Committee on Covid has recommended that hostel staff must be vaccinated at the earliest, besides staggering during breakfast/lunch and dinner time in hostels. Most of the time, students rush towards the canteen during these hours. We need to supply food during these hours in a staggered manner in order to strictly enforce the social distancing norms,” he said.
He added that though the state would accelerate its vaccination drive, but due to the emergence of a large number of cases in hostels the state will now focus on inoculating all hostel staff members to contain the spread of the virus.
On the prevailing situation of Covid and the new variant Omicron, Mr Bommai said that considering the present positivity rate there is no need to panic.
Besides adhering to the SoPs in hostels like sanitisation, serving of food in staggered batches, maintaining distance, compulsory double dose vaccination for cooking personnel, the Chief Minister added that setting up isolation rooms was also on the card.
He also said that the anti-Covid vaccination drive would be intensified again as his ministers suggested during the meeting.
The Chief Minister said that the state would continue to enforce the SOP’s on all bordering areas, especially Kerala border.
“As a precautionary measure, the guidelines enforced at the border areas would continue to remain operational,” he said.
As for permission for enforcing a night curfew or ‘possible restrictions’ on Christmas and New Year celebrations, Mr Bommai reacted that a reasonable decision can only be taken after assessing present Covid scenario in the state. “We will not take any decision in a hurry,” he said and added that the TAC Chairman suggested that there is no necessity of taking any decision in a hurry.
He added that college students coming from Kerala and residing in college hostels must have to mandatorily undergo a Covid test. “Intensive surveillance and testing at the inter-State borders with Kerala and Maharashtra would continue,” Mr Bommai said.
