Karnataka to conduct state-level COVID-19 prevalence survey
Bengaluru: Karnataka government on Thursday said it will conduct a survey to estimate the prevalence of COVID-19 across the state and the proportion of people who have developed immunity.
The survey, which will involve adults over the age of 18, will cover 38 units, including all districts of Karnataka and eight zones of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), the state health department said in a release here.
The state's COVID-19 tally stood at 2,56,975 while the death toll is 4,429 as of Thursday.
A training programme for this purpose was inaugurated on Thursday by Health and Family Welfare Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey.
District Surveillance Officers, District Tuberculosis Officers, Epidemiologists, and personnel of Integrated Counselling and Testing Centres under NACO (National Aids Control Organisation) are covered under the training.
The survey data is expected to guide further state interventions for COVID-19 management, the release said.
The survey, dates of which are yet to be announced, will include samples from populations at three risk levels -- low, moderate and high.
The low-risk category would include pregnant women and persons attending the outpatient department in hospitals or attendees of children or patients.
Moderate to high-risk populations will include bus conductors, vegetable vendors, healthcare workers, individuals in containment zones and in public areas such as markets, malls, bus stops, and railway stations and the elderly and those with comorbid conditions.
Data for the survey will be collected using an app to register patients, update sample collection status and lab results, the release added.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
