BENGALURU: The Karnataka Health and Family Welfare department is all set to reclassify Red, Orange and Green zones across the state on Tuesday. With the Union Home Ministry giving state governments the autonomy to demarcate zones based on parameters set by the Union Health Ministry, Karnataka is looking to do away with district-wise zoning and opt for smaller geographical regions that have concentrated cases of Covid-19.
The state government is looking to classify only taluks in non-municipal regions and wards in municipal corporation limits as Red, Orange or Green zones, based on the number of active cases, cases per lakh population, doubling rates, positivity rates, tests ratio and mortality rate. Fresh classification of taluks and wards is expected to be released by the Health Department on Tuesday.
“Given the spike in Covid-19 cases across the country, the Central Government has also liberalised its parameters and allowed states to decide the zones. If one were to go by the old parameters, almost all districts in the country would have come under Red zone. Going by the new parameters, no district, as a whole, will come under the Red zone in Karnataka,” said a senior official from the state Health and Family Welfare Ministry. Karnataka had requested the Centre to allow zoning of only taluks or wards to ensure better and targetted monitoring, without affecting economic activities.
“The Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Karnataka, shall categorise taluks, wards into Red, Orange and Green only for the purpose of better monitoring. These zones shall not be for purpose of imposing any further restrictions on activities permitted,” said the state government’s order on Lockdown 4.0 restrictions, signed by Chief Secretary T M Vijay Bhaskar.
Health dept monitors people with travel history
Bengaluru: The Health Department is closely monitoring people with travel history to 30 cities in other states, who account for almost 80 per cent of cases in the country. While people from Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat are banned from entering Karnataka till May 31, those coming in from the remaining states are being watched.