Karnataka: ‘Pass system’ for movement in Bengaluru; stamping extended

“Passes will be issued from the office of the jurisdictional DCP (Law & Order) and be made available 24×7 on submission of a standard application form,” Rao said.

Earlier on Wednesday, many citizens and delivery aggregator companies had raised concerns over the police allegedly restricting the movement of essentials. With online delivery services pointing out the same, Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao has called for a meeting with representatives of the sector at 7 pm on Wednesday.

“I have called a meeting of online,e-commerce food, medicine, groceries, vegetables/ fruits or animal products delivery aggregatorsTODAYat 7 pm at My office,No1, Infantry Road, Bangalore. One representative from each agency may please come. We promise all cooperation, please come,” he wrote on Twitter, before issuing the memo on the ‘pass system’.

With the Ugadi festival coinciding with the lockdown Wednesday, most people in Bengaluru stayed indoors. A few, however, did venture out for minor festival shopping.

“While we saw a minor increase in traffic during the early hours of the day, the number has come down after noon,” a traffic police personnel on duty at Madiwala junction told indianexpress.com.

A deserted street in Bengaluru on the first day of the nationwide lockdown on Wednesday. (Express photo: Ralph Alex Arakal)

However, some found it difficult to find the desired products in shops as small-scale vendors ran out of stock.
“After people arrived in large numbers soon after PM Modi’s address yesterday night, we had run out of stock of most essentials. We opened the store this morning, but all shelves were emptied within an hour,” Ajmal Pasha, a grocery storekeeper in BTM Layout, said.

Karnataka begins stamping contacts of isolated citizens

Stepping up measures to identify individuals in contact with those already stamped (includes people who returned from abroad and patients tested positive), the Karnataka government has extended the stamping process to all primary and secondary contacts of such people.

“To check the coronavirus pandemic from reaching the community transmission stage, the government has decided to also stamp all primary and secondary contacts of those already stamped and are under isolation/quarantine. These persons will also be subjected to home quarantine,” BBMP Commissioner B H Anil Kumar said.

Village sealed, home minister lauds move

In a bid to prevent outsiders from entering the village and dwellers leaving the area, people of Madigondanahalli village in Ramanagara district of Karnataka have blocked all points of entry to the place.

Karnataka Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai has lauded the move, urging other villages to do the same. “I congratulate the villagers for taking such an initiative. I would also urge other villages to ensure such measures are put in place,” he tweeted.

The same was reported from a couple of villages in Bagalkot district too.

Hotels distribute free food to daily wagers, needy

A few hotels in Bengaluru began distributing free food to daily-wage labourers on Wednesday. Some restaurants in Koramangala and Indiranagar areas, which began the initiative, pointed out the importance of being “support systems to each other in times of difficulty.”

WATCH| A food outlet in Koramangala, #Bengaluru distributes free food to migrant labourers and the needy living in the neighbourhood on Day-1 of the 21-day nationwide lockdown to combat #COVID19. The hotel plans to continue the same till March 31. @IndianExpress pic.twitter.com/JyLrtJZyjr

— Ralph Alex Arakal (@ralpharakal) March 25, 2020

Navaj Sherief, the owner of Saapaad, a restaurant in Koramangala, said, “We have plans to continue this at least till March 31 as of now. We were happy to serve people, including labourers, food-delivery executives and some policemen who were on duty in the area. We have taken care not to give away food in bulk to anyone, to ensure it reaches only the needy.”

51 cases so far, health dept launches app to see spots visited by positive patients

Karnataka recorded ten new cases of COVID-19 Wednesday — in what is the highest single-day rise in the number of positive coronavirus cases in the state. The total positive cases in the state is now 51; the first case was confirmed here on March 9.

As of Wednesday, Bengaluru has 32 positive COVID-19 cases and Dakshina Kannada five. Chikkaballapur and Kalaburagi districts have three cases each while Mysuru and Uttara Kannada have two cases and Kodagu, Dharwad, Davanagere, Udupi have one case each.

The new patients include a 37-year-old woman (Patient 42), a resident of Chitradurga, who has a history of travel to Guyana and arrived in Bengaluru via Delhi on March 20. The woman is under treatment at a designated hospital in Davangere.

Patients 43 and 44 are a couple with a history of travel to Brazil and Argentina. The 63-year-old man and the 59-year-old woman arrived in Bengaluru on March 19. Both are being treated at a designated hospital in the city.

Patients 45 and 46 are 26-year-old men from Bengaluru who were in Spain recently. Both men arrived in Bengaluru via Dubai on March 14.

Patients 47 and 48 are a Bengaluru couple with a history of travel to Athens and London. The 63-year-old woman and the 69-year-old man arrived in Bengaluru on March 18.

Patients 49 and 50 are two girls, aged nine and seven, respectively, who are a resident of Bengaluru and daughters of Patient 17 (daughter). All three are isolated at a designated hospital in Bengaluru.

Patient 51 is a 34-year-old male resident of Udupi who returned from Dubai on March 18. The case is isolated at a designated hospital in Udupi. According to District Health and Family Welfare Officer, Dr Sudhir Chandra Sooda, the patient got admitted to a government hospital in Udupi on March 23 for fever. His throat swab was sent for a test in Shivamogga laboratory and the preliminary report confirmed he had tested positive for COVID-19.

#COVID2019: @DHFWKA develops a mobile application, called ‘Corona Watch’ which can be downloaded from https://t.co/xnb2V8XUib. In the application people can see the spots visited by positive patients upto 14 days prior to testing positive. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/U72tuFY7jh

— Darshan Devaiah B P (@DarshanDevaiahB) March 25, 2020

“Out of 51 cases detected and confirmed in Karnataka, so far six cases are transit passengers of Kerala who are being treated here,” Karnataka Department of Health and Family Welfare Services clarified.

‘Corona Watch’ Mobile app by health department

The Karnataka health department has developed a mobile application, called ‘Corona Watch’, which can be downloaded from http://www.karnataka.gov.in. According to the health department, in the app, people can see the spots visited by positive patients upto 14 days prior to testing positive. “The application also shows the nearest First Respondent Hospitals and Helpline numbers,” the health department officials said.

The department has also published the list of people on home quarantine on the department website for the benefit of the public.