K’taka mulls full lockdown amid surge, CM to hold cabinet meeting

Bengaluru

Karnataka chief secretary P Ravi Kumar on Saturday said the state government was in favour of a full lockdown in the wake of surging Covid-19 cases in the ongoing second wave of the pandemic, but people were against it. Talking to reporters in Bengaluru, he said the current situation “does not give enough time for the government” to have health-related facilities in place “without a lockdown”.

“The government wants to do it. Everyone says it’s for the best. But people don’t want it. People want everything to be let loose and that those who’re dying should continue dying. All people should be responsible. The government alone cannot do everything. People should step out only if necessary. At least, they should wear masks,” Kumar said.

“Hospital beds can’t be created overnight. It will take a minimum of 15 days to put beds, oxygen line and ventilator. For starters, we need to get this equipment. It takes at least 15 days. Even if we get these in place, we still need doctors and nurses in place. There are limitations, so we are trying with what we have… even our doctors and nurses are turning positive,” he said.

Karnataka and its capital Bengaluru have been recording unprecedented rise in Covid-19 cases amid the surging second wave. On Saturday, Karnataka reported 29,438 new Covid-19 cases and 208 new deaths. The total number of active cases in the state stood at 234,483 while 14,283 people have lost their lives in the pandemic. Bengaluru alone accounted for 17,342 cases and 149 deaths of the total on Saturday, according to the state health department’s daily bulletin.

According to a senior government official, chief minister BS Yediyurappa is likely to seek opinions from his colleagues on imposing lockdown-like restrictions for a week in the state, during a Cabinet meeting scheduled on April 26.

The move comes at a time when citing the explosion of Covid-19 cases in Karnataka and especially Bengaluru, which has over 150,000 active cases, the highest for any city in the country, the state’s Technical Advisory Committee on Covid-19 has asked the state government to impose stringent restrictions, including lockdown for 14 days to break the chain.

The panel has also recommended to the government to increase the number of beds to tide over the crisis. The TAC members also foresee the third wave Covid-19 in October-November and have, accordingly, insisted that the government should complete the vaccination of vulnerable age groups before the next wave hits.

An epidemiologist at the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and a member of the state TAC on Covid-19, Dr Giridhar Babu told news agency PTI: “I have on record said that there are two main strategies. Firstly, we need to reduce the number of cases and that will happen only by a stringent lockdown for at least 14 days. Secondly, we should expand the bed capacity by taking as much as possible beds from all the private medical colleges, nursing homes and hospitals.”

Babu said the state may witness the peak of the second wave by the May end or the first week of June.

On Thursday, the government announced a partial lockdown, asking the shops and establishments that are not listed in the government order as ‘essential services’ to remain shut till May 4. The ban was apart from the complete weekend lockdown in the state. In the partial lockdown, no restrictions were put on the movement of people. However, this is expected to be reviewed during Monday’s meeting, the senior government official added.

On Saturday, state health minister Dr K Sudhakar asked all private and government medical colleges to reserve beds for Covid patients in three to four days. He, however, excluded emergency beds, and those meant for mother and childcare and dialysis from the reservation.

“The state hopes to get an additional 7,500 beds by doing this. All hospitals with less than 30 beds should only admit non-Covid patients. All private hospitals with more than 30 beds have to now reserve 80% beds for government-referred Covid patients, including ICU beds, ventilator beds, high-dependency units, and high flow nasal cannula beds. This is an emergency situation,” Sudhakar added.

Bengaluru and other parts of Karnataka went on a weekend lockdown on Saturday. Apart from few incidents of police cracking down on violators, the lockdown was complete, said senior police officers in the state. The city’s roads bore a deserted look on Saturday, with most shops, including supermarkets, shut. In the four hours between 6 am and 10 am, when shops involved in essential supplies are allowed to operate, people were seen queuing up to buy groceries and other essential supplies.

“The order has not made it clear if we were allowed to step out to buy the supplies or they were to be delivered. Since I had to buy meat, I came out. Police didn’t stop us but only asked us to return home before 10 am,” said Janet Rodriguez, a resident of Cooke Town in Bengaluru.

Apart from eateries, all shops remained closed in the city and the roads were empty with barely any traffic, except for delivery executives. A shopkeeper in the area said there was no panic buy. “Even on Friday night, there was no big rush. Even today (Saturday) morning, only our usual customers came,” he said.

In Bengaluru, police seized 1,041 two-wheelers, 45 three-wheelers and 65 four-wheelers for violation of the curfew on Saturday. “We have adequate police presence across the city, and we are ensuring that people stay at him. It is just the first day, we believe the situation will streamline by tomorrow,” said a senior police officer.

While the state and particularly Bengaluru have been recording unprecedented spike in the cases and deaths due to the virus, experts said besides the complacency from people and lack of planning, the biggest reason was due to the fact that the government stopped listening to the expert panel’s advice.

The state’s TAC on November 30 last year had submitted a report to the government, recommending it to prepare for the second wave of Covid-19. The report, a copy of which is available with the Hindustan Times, asked the government to prepare beds, ICUs, ICU-ventilators, and make arrangements for oxygen availability, vital drugs, and other infrastructure, including ambulance services in both private and public hospitals.

“An early recognition of the second wave in the state could be done by closely monitoring the seven-day average growth rate… at the district and state levels. The second wave is expected during January-February 2021,” the report stated.

Though the second wave came a month late, the government failed to prepare as advised by the experts. One of the most important recommendations of the TAC was to stop mass gatherings. “Super-spreader events during December and January should be strictly restricted and events such as weddings and other social gatherings should be permitted only in open areas and with an audience of not more than 100 persons. A maximum of 200 persons should be allowed at all political and public events, 50 at death ceremonies, and 20 at funerals,” the report read.

A member of the TAC said even though state health minister K Sudhakar had pushed for these recommendations, the cabinet didn’t agree to enforce them.

“The onset of the second wave was warned by the experts in Karnataka on November 30, 2020. We missed the timing, and the quantum is higher than expected. Governments had all the time to review and prepare,” tweeted TAC member Dr Girighara Babu.

“The bed capacity is hardly sufficient for few days. It is also necessary to reduce the speed of transmission. There are only a few options any Government can have when the cases surge rapidly and resources are limited. We need stricter mitigation and containment, starting now,” Babu said in another tweet.

Apart from the government turning a blind eye to the recommendations, the complicacy from both civic authorities and the public played a major role in the situation going out of control. “There were two things the BBMP and the respective district administrations should have done. The first step was to impose strict enforcement of social distancing norms. It was done in the initial days, but over a period, markets, malls and other places returned to normalcy. Weddings had guests beyond permitted numbers and political rallies were held with people standing shoulder to shoulder,” said a TAC member on the condition of anonymity.

“The second step was to prepare enough hospital beds, ICUs, ventilators and oxygen supplies. We had specifically recommended this in November, February and March but no one was ready to believe our projections,” he added.

According to experts, Karnataka used to get 200-300 tonnes of oxygen and it worked for us in the first wave. However, in the second wave, the requirement doubled to 600 tonnes. “As per the chief minister’s letter to Prime Minister (on Friday), the state would require 1,500 tonnes of oxygen in the coming month. The expert committee had projected such rise in the cases, but no one listened,” the expert added.

While the government was against any extension of lockdown as it was taking a toll on the economy, experts echoed the government had to impose restrictions. “We are in a partial lockdown right now. We are doing it in the peak of the crisis, if we had taken similar measures earlier, we could have averted this situation where we are reporting close to 100 deaths every day,” said a senior IAS officer, on the condition of anonymity adding that the government recommended to imposed stricter measures, several times.

Experts also pointed out that despite the projections from the TAC was of the larger wave, the government’s planning used the numbers from the previous surge. “On the second day of the second wave, we crossed the highest number reported in the first wave. We are now reporting over 100% more cases than the last wave. The government failed to listen to the experts there as well,” a health expert added.

(With inputs from agency)