As per the advice of the COVID-19 Technical Advisory Committee, the pandemic must be taken seriously till the end of May, warned Karnataka Health Minister K Sudhakar on Monday.
Sudhakar said the state may face a shortage of beds if the number of cases increases drastically. He said he has collected information regarding the availability of beds in government hospitals, besides initiating talks with private hospitals to reserve beds for COVID treatment.
"There is a need to increase COVID reserved beds in Victoria and Bowring hospitals and we will do that. Also, there is a need to increase the percentage of beds reserved in private hospitals for COVID treatment from the existing 20%," Sudhakar said.
As per experts, there is a possibility of more than 6500 cases per day in Bengaluru alone, he said. "If Karnataka does not contain the spread, we will see a further surge in cases. If the situation arises, Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa is willing to take the suggestions of opposition parties as well," the Minister informed.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has interacted with eight states and suggested that they take stringent measures. Maharashtra has imposed tougher measures. "If Karnataka gets into such a situation, tougher measures will become inevitable. We should not underestimate the scale and speed at which the infection is spreading," cautioned the Minister.
As announced on Sunday, the state received more than 15 lakh doses of COVID vaccine in two consignments to Bengaluru and Belagavi. There is no shortage as of now, as per the Minister.
"More than 46 lakh people have been vaccinated so far. We were having 12 lakh doses and after speaking to the Union Health Ministry, an additional 15 lakh doses have been allocated to our state out of which 10 lakh have been sent to Bengaluru and 5 lakh to Belagavi," he added.