BENGALURU: Karnataka is unlikely to impose lockdowns even though states can do so under guidelines released by the Ministry of Home Affairs on Wednesday.
The guidelines, effective for December, allow states and Union Territories to impose lockdowns and night curfews based on their assessment, but Karnataka is not likely to exercise such options, Health Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey told TNIE.
“It is an option, but the situation at present doesn’t warrant it. As for new containment and surveillance guidelines, we are already implementing most of them,” he said.
A local lockdown outside a containment zone can be imposed only after consultation with the Centre.
After the nationwide lockdown was lifted, the state government had re-imposed a lockdown between July 12-22. Cases spiked in July- September, but began to a decline from October.
From a peak of around 10,000 cases a day, the number has now come down to 1,000 cases each day.
The central guidelines say that the list of containment zones will be notified on websites run by the district administration.
“There shall be strict perimeter control to ensure that there is no movement of people in or out of these zones, except for medical emergencies and for maintaining supply of essential goods and services. There shall be intensive house-to-house surveillance.
Testing shall be carried out as per protocol. Listing of contacts shall be carried out in respect of all persons found positive, along with their tracking, identification, quarantine and follow up of contacts for 14 days, with 80% of contacts to be traced in 72 hours,” the guidelines said.
In the past week, Mandya, Gadag, Bidar, Dakshina Kannada and Chamarajanagar districts performed the best on contact tracing.