COVID-19 Daily Update - June 4

Karnataka sees a slight dip in Covid-19 cases, and the Supreme Court weighs in on contentious decisions.In our series of conversations looking to the future, we have venture capitalist and former Infosys director TV Mohandas Pai telling us what's going on in the startup space in Bengaluru, and what to keep an eye on.
The daily update with Akhi Kadidal.
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Hello. This the daily Covid update from Deccan Herald.
On the bulletin today: Karnataka registers 257 new cases...the Supreme Court weighs in on two orders passed during the lockdown and...Venture capitalist and former director at Infosys, Mohandas Pai sounds a word of caution regarding the startup ecosystem.
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But first, a look at the daily figures...
India currently has over one lakh ten thousand active cases of the novel coronavirus. The Worldometer info statistics show that India is the third fastest country reporting new Covid-19 infections world over after Brazil and the United States.
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A look at the national news before the numbers from Karnataka...
The Supreme Court said today that a middle ground must be found to protect the interest of contractual workers and employees, as well as a group of companies, which has opposed the Union government's order to pay full salary for 54 days during the nationwide lockdown.
The Union Government had issued an order for wages to be paid without any deduction during the first phase of the lockdown on March 29th, but had subsequently revoked it on May 17th.
The top court directed that no coercive action should be taken against the companies until June 12th, when it would pronounce its judgement on a batch of petitions questioning the validity of March 29th order issued under the Disaster Management Act.
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The Supreme Court also heard another matter related to the announcements made during the lockdown. This time it was the moratorium announced by the RBI on loans. The apex court questioned the RBI’s decision to charge interest on the loans despite a moratorium.
In its reply to a PIL filed by Gajendra Sharma, the RBI has told the court that its decision granting a moratorium on loan repayment was only to "defer the payment obligations and it declined to grant any "forced" interest waiver on loan moratorium, saying it would risk not only the financial viability of the banks but would also put the interests of the depositors in jeopardy. Further, it would hurt banks by as much as Rs 2 lakh crore or 1% of GDP.
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Moving on to the numbers from Karnataka…
257 new cases were reported from the state today, 10 less than yesterday.Of these 149 cases are attributed to those who have entered the state from Maharashtra.

All the cases from Udupi, Hassan, Mandya are from among those who have come in from Maharashtra.

Raichuru has reported a surprising mix of cases today, 30 cases are primary contacts of Patient 2612, while 46 others are linked to other previously diagnosed patients.

The other districts have also reported cases from Maharashtra, the count of primary contacts of previously diagnosed patients is also higher than the past few days.

There have been 4 deaths in the state today.
(PAUSE)
The youngest is a 44 year old man from Gadag who was diagnosed with Influenza-Like-Illness as well as UTI, he passed away due to sepsis and bronchopneumonia.

The others are between the age group of 60 to 83 years. While two presented symptoms of Severe Acute Respiratory Illness, the last among the four died due to severe metabolic acidosis with renal failure.

With this, Karnataka has recorded over 4320 cases of the novel coronavirus this year. The state currently has 2,651 active cases and has recorded 57 deaths.
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A new ELISA antibody testing kit designed by Biocon's research arm, Syngene, could potentially alter just how the state carries out testing in the future. While the RT-PCR method takes up to eight hours to deliver results on nasal samples, Elisa short for Enzyme-Linked Immunoassay kits can deliver results within three hours. Virologists and epidemiologists have been clamoring for the technology as it can be used to rapidly test large chunks of the population for subclinical infection - or early-stage or mild infection, to determine how many people are safe from the virus.
The kits will be sent to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, for validation.
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In Bengaluru, BBMP officials have clarified that the decision to stop random testing at Padarayanapura, a containment ward, was taken after a suggestion from the expert committee that random testing was not viable as the 1,000 samples yielded just six or seven positive results.
The BBMP has decided to test only symptomatic, SARI and ILI residents of the area, and primary and secondary contacts on the 12th day of quarantine irrespective of their symptoms, ruling out fears of community transmission.
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Moving on, in our series of conversations looking to the future...Around 50% of start-ups will shut shop in Bengaluru post the pandemic, according to experts. The main challenge for almost all start-ups right now is to extend the runway, which translates to preserving cash until normalcy returns and demand picks up.
My colleague Samiksha Goel spoke to Venture capitalist and the former Infosys director, Mohandas Pai to get a sense of what’s going on in the startup space in Bengaluru.
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You can watch the full interview on our brand new series Startup Capital this weekend, on all our social media handles.
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That's all from us today. For the latest updates, log on to deccanherald.com. Stay safe and we’ll see you tomorrow.