Karnataka considering taluk-wise containment of coronavirus after May 3

Based on active COVID-19 cases, the government has classified districts into red, orange, yellow and green zones

The Karnataka state government is expected to revisit its COVID-19 containment and lockdown strategy after May 3 in order to free up unaffected districts and focus only on the virus-hit taluks.

“Till now, we were looking at one district as the centre to assign red, green and orange colours. But after May 3, I think taluks will be identified. So, based on taluks that have cases, we will have taluk-wise red zones. Entire districts will not be considered,” Revenue Minister R Ashoka told reporters.

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Based on active COVID-19 cases, the government has classified districts into red (over 15 cases), orange (6-14 cases), yellow (1-5 cases) and green (zero case) zones. As per this, there are six red, five orange, five yellow and 14 green districts.

It is based on this that the government is enforcing lockdown measures.

When the same colour coding is applied on a taluk map, it is seen that a large part of Karnataka is unaffected by COVID-19. Out of 176 taluks, there are active COVID-19 cases in just 36 taluks. Only three taluks in Bengaluru Urban have seen COVID-19 cases.

“An entire district looks red, but it’s generally one taluk that’s contributing all or maximum number of cases in most districts,” State COVID-19 War Room in-charge Munish Moudgil pointed out.

Currently, the red districts are Kalaburagi, Vijayapura, Bagalkot, Belagavi, Mysuru and Bengaluru Urban. The orange districts are Bidar, Dharwad, Ballari, Dakshina Kannada and Mandya. The yellow districts are Gadag, Uttara Kannada, Tumakuru, Chikballapur and Bengaluru Rural. The green districts are Yadgir, Raichur, Koppal, Haveri, Davangere, Shivamogga, Chitradurga, Udupi, Chikmagalur, Hassan, Kodagu, Chamarajanagar, Ramanagara and Kolar.