The containment zone restrictions in the Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) campus in Udupi district of Karnataka will be lifted two weeks after the last notified case in the campus, Udupi district officials said on Monday. The campus was notified as a containment zone on March 17, and all the students residing inside the campus were tested in the subsequent week. Over 900 COVID-19 positive cases were reported in the cluster, prompting institute officials to arrange spaces for isolating students who tested positive for the coronavirus.
The last case reported in MIT campus was a week ago, on April 5. The containment zone restrictions will be fully lifted in a week, on April 19, if no further fresh cases are reported, Udupi Deputy Commissioner G Jagadeesha told TNM. There are currently 361 active COVID-19 cases in Udupi district, of which six cases are from the MIT campus in Manipal. "The cases have been distributed over a larger area in the last two weeks. The primary health care centres (PHC) in Karkala, Kundapur and Kaup as well as two floors in the TMA Pai Hospital in Udupi are currently treating COVID-19 patients," G Jagadeesha said.
In March, following the outbreak of COVID-19 cases in the MIT campus, many colleges under the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) shifted their classes online. Many students residing in the town returned to their hometowns including those inside the campus, who were asked to produce a negative RT-PCR test certificate while leaving.
Most of the students who tested positive were asymptomatic and recovered quickly, Udupi Deputy Commissioner G Jagadeesha said. Currently, students still on-campus are allowed to leave only for medical reasons.
Manipal and Udupi, located 5 kilometres apart, are among eight cities in Karnataka where a night curfew is in place from 10 pm to 5 am every day, from April 10 to April 20. The other cities are Bengaluru, Mysuru, Mangaluru, Kalaburagi, Bidar and Tumakuru.
There are four active containment zones in Udupi district-- in Kundapur, Kaup, Karkala and Manipal. Mandavi Emerald, an apartment building in Manipal, was notified as a containment zone after COVID-19 cases were recorded among its residents.
Udupi district reported 75 COVID-19 cases on Sunday, when Karnataka reported 10250 COVID-19 cases. While Bengaluru (7584 cases) accounted for nearly 3/4th of the cases in the state on Sunday, many districts in the state including Kalaburagi (291), Bidar (290), Mysuru (277), Hassan (170), Tumakuru (150), Dharwad (150) and Dakshina Kannada (133), also reported higher COVID-19 case figures.