Karnataka govt lying about Covid-19 cases reducing: Siddaramaiah

Karnataka’s Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah on Saturday claimed that the BS Yediyurappa administration was “lying” to citizens about Covid-19 cases coming down in the state, underlining the drop in the number of tests being done.

The former chief minister tweeted an April 25 circular issued by National Health Mission (Karnataka) director Arundhati Chandrasekhar, according to which random testing of asymptomatic persons has been suspended until further orders.

“The actual reason behind the chief minister’s lie that Covid-19 cases are reducing is the BJP’s government’s circular that asymptomatic persons should not be tested,” Siddaramaiah said. “Do you know the dangers of this, chief minister?” he asked.

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According to the circular, tests are compulsory for people who show Covid-19 symptoms, including influenza like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infections (SARI). Compulsory testing also includes primary contacts of a Covid-19 positive patient and all members living in that person’s house, all symptomatic contacts, pregnant women (two weeks before scheduled delivery) and those surgery-bound persons who die of suspected Covid-19.

“It’s this foolish decision of the BJP government, due to which Covid-19 isn’t coming under control in spite of the lockdown,” Siddaramaiah argued. “There are chances that an infected person, who isn’t tested because of no symptoms, will infect many others with the coronavirus.”

The Congress leader cited testing numbers to buttress his argument. “The chief minister boasted that case numbers fell from 49,000 in the first week of May to 38,000 within days of imposing a lockdown. But, he did not say that the number of tests went down from 1,77,560 on April 1 to 97,000 on May 17,” he said.

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Siddaramaiah asked CM Yediyurappa to “immediately resume” testing of asymptomatic persons. “Coronavirus should be fought with medicine and treatment and not by fekugiri of lies and deceit,” he said.

Earlier this week, Health Minister K Sudhakar acknowledged that testing had gone down. “Of course, I agree that the number of tests conducted has reduced. We will take measures to address that,” he said. “But, our positivity rate is dropping despite testing only symptomatic patients. That’s a good sign,” he had said.