Covid-19 Daily Update - May 23

Karnataka reports 216 new cases, its highest ever. According to Dr K Sudhakar, Medical Education Minister, it's time to learn from the pandemic and invest in public healthcare.All this and more on the daily update with Akhil Kadidal.

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Hello. This the daily Covid update from Deccan Herald.
On the bulletin today:
Karnataka reports 216 new cases today, the sharpest spike till date...the state releases revised SOPs for interstate travellers and issues a new circular to define containment zones.
Also in the bulletin, Dr K Sudhakar, the Medical Education Minister in Karnataka makes a strong pitch for public healthcare.
(PAUSE)

But first, a look at the daily figures
At the time of this recording, India has over 72,000 active cases in the country right now and has recorded 3,857 deaths.

The ICMR has tested more than 28 lakh samples for the novel coronavirus so far and more than 1 lakh samples in the last 24 hours.

Before we take a look at the figures from Karnataka, here are some key updates from the country...
The Indian Council of Medical Research advises the use of hydroxychloroquine as a preventive medicine against the novel coronavirus. The advisory states that HCQ can be used not only for high risk individuals but also for the contacts of asymptomatic Covid-19 positive patients.
The ICMR advisory comes close on the heels of two studies in the Lancet and British Medical Journal showing that the medicine doesn't offer any benefit and in fact increases the rate of death among Covid-19 patients.
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Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has said that India will try to start international flights as early as mid-June if the SARS-Cov-2 virus behaves in a predictable manner. He also added that the government was in talk with the states over quarantining passengers of domestic flights, which begins on Monday.
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Moving on to the numbers from Karnataka…
The state has reported 216 new cases- the biggest single day spike yet.
More than 180 of the cases have a travel history to Maharashtra. Other travel histories include Gujarat, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh.

The highest number of cases today have been reported from Yadagiri district with 72 positive cases. It is closely followed by Raichuru at 40. Mandya, Chikkaballapura and Gadag have reported 28, 26 and 15 cases respectively. Rest of the districts have reported cases in single digits.

There were two deaths reported today.
Patient 1270, a 32-year-old Bengaluru resident passed away due to a cardiac arrest.
The second death was due to non-covid reasons. Patient 1783 committed suicide in Dakshina Kannada district at a quarantine centre in Ka-dan-dale. This is the second death due to suicide, pertaining to a Covid patient in the State.
With this, the state has reported 1959 cases in total of which 1307 are active cases. 608 patients have recovered, while 42 have died. The state has tested more than 9670 samples in the last 24 hours.
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Moving on to a few updates from Karnataka,
A new standard operating procedure has been released by the Karnataka government for interstate passengers.
According to the new SOP, passengers will be sent to institutional quarantine for seven days if they arrive from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. This will be followed by seven days of home quarantine.
These returnees will be tested between the fifth day to the seventh day.
Registering on Seva Sindhu is mandatory for all interstate travellers.
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The state government has also revised the definitions of containment zones and the standard operating procedure in these zones. The new order dated May 21, nullifies the previous two containment orders issued by the state. The new order specifies that a containment zone continues to be a containment zone if the location has 10 or less than 10 primary and secondary contacts of the positive case.
Containment zones will be denotified if it does not have any cases or contacts during a period of 28 days.
For more information on the revised SOP, please log onto our website.
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For almost two months now, several government hospitals have been turned into Covid-care facilities. Many hospitals which treated the poor or those patients with compromised immunity, will now have to find a way back to regular operations.
To find out how, my colleague spoke to Dr K Sudhakar, the Medical Education Minister in Karnataka.
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That's all from us today. For the latest updates, log on to deccanherald.com.