The Karnataka government has announced that all schools will have to immediately stop physical classes for all standards except 10th, 11th and 12th. Only online classes will be allowed for other standards for the next two weeks, a high level meeting chaired by Chief Minister Bommai decided on January 4. The government will hold another review in a few days and decide whether this rule will have to be extended. The government has also decided that all colleges except medical, paramedical and nursing colleges will be shut for now.
An open official order has been published by the government in this regard. "In Bengaluru Urban district, all schools and colleges except, Medical and Para Medical will remain closed with effect from 06-01-2022 except class 10th, 11th and 12th," the order says.
Revenue Minister R Ashoka, making the announcements, said that there were 3,048 COVID-19 cases in Bengaluru at the time of the announcement, with 147 Omicron cases in the city. He added that the city/state will see over 10,000 cases in six days as cases are doubling every 2-3 days. The government also said that Bengaluru will be treated differently from other districts, with its own set of guidelines, which includes extension of night curfew by 2 weeks.
This was the fourth consecutive day that cases spiked in Karnataka, and on Tuesday, January 4, the state reported 2,479 infections and four deaths. Active cases stood at 13,532.
The positivity rate has increased while the case fatality rate has not. On January 4, the rates were 2.59% and 0.16%, respectively. The positivity rate on January 3 was 1.6%. A total of 95,391 samples were tested in the state including 68,798 RT-PCR tests on Tuesday.
The state is witnessing an uptick in fresh infections since January 1 when the tally breached the 1,000 mark after a gap of three months. On January 2, there were 1,187 cases whereas on January 3, 1,290 cases were reported.
Other districts too had fresh cases including 75 in Dakshina Kannada, 72 in Udupi, 48 in Mysuru, 45 in Belagavi, 29 in Dharwad and 18 in Hassan.