Karnataka’s Covid situation is steadily improving, said Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar.

“With more than two lakh discharges, recovery rate of 70 per cent, and less than 1 per cent of active cases being treated in ICU, mortality rate of 1.69 per cent, we are steadily improving. I appreciate the doctors and Corona warriors for their relentless hard work,” he added.

To bring down the number of cases, the State has ramped up it’s testing capacity. “We have increased the number of Covid testing labs from two to 108. In the last five days, we have tested 3,23,753 samples clocking more than 50,000 tests per day.

On Tuesday, we crossed 25 lakh tests and so far we tested25,13,555 samples,” said Sudhakar.

Sudha Murthy’s efforts

Speaking at the inauguration of Broadway Road Charaka Hospital by the Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa at Shivajinagar on Wednesday, the Medical Education Minister said, “A fully equipped Covid hospital has been developed without any financial burden to the government.”

The hospital consists of 130 general beds, 20 ICU beds and 20 ventilators.

He added, “About four months ago we had an idea of establishing a full-fledged Covid hospital here in a BBMP building which was abandoned for more than four years. When we requested, Sudha Murthy of Infosys Foundation for help she agreed to provide medical infrastructure equipment worth ₹11 crore. Wipro provided medical staff and now the hospital is ready without much burden on the government.”

Hold NEET

Deputy Chief Minister and Higher Education Minister CN Ashwath Narayana, said “the State government successfully conducted the CET for more than 1.94 lakh students and 63 Covid positive students also have achieved good ranks. When the reality is so conducive, I do not understand why people are opposing the NEET from being conducted.”

‘Something fishy’

“I would like to advise them that they should not play with the future of the students. I suspect that there is something fishy about the issue. Maybe certain invisible groups want seats allocated through an opaque system rather than on the basis of merit. Some vested interests have been trying to disrupt the NEET examination since the beginning. There is a huge ecosystem behind it with efforts going on for many years now. However, their objectives will remain unfulfilled.” he added.

comment COMMENT NOW