Karnataka has again closed its borders with Kerala because of a surge in coronavirus cases, PTI reported on Monday. People who wish to enter Karnataka from Kerala will have to produce a negative coronavirus certificate, obtained through a test taken 72 hours before their journey.
Meanwhile, an apartment complex in Bengaluru was sealed after 10 people tested positive for the coronavirus, NDTV reported. The authorities in Bengaluru said that they will have to enforce a lockdown if people do not adhere to safety norms.
Health workers and police personnel were deployed at the Talapady, Saradka, Nettanige-Mudnuru and Jalsoor borders to conduct proper checks before allowing people to cross over. The authorities of Dakshina Kannada district have sealed all borders except these four.
The new curbs led to confusion and huge traffic pile ups on the highways. The residents of Kerala’s Kasargod district staged a protest against the sealing of borders in Talapady, The Times of India reported. The protestors threatened to block the Mangaluru-Kerala national highway if travel curbs continued.
Arshad Vorkady, Kasaragod district panchayat standing committee chairperson, told the newspaper that the new restrictions were a clear violation of the Centre’s “Unlock” guidelines.
Negative test certificates were also made mandatory for drivers of goods vehicles, according to The Times of India.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that the restrictions on inter-state travel will be brought to the Centre’s notice, PTI reported. At a meeting in Thiruvananthapuram, Vijayan said that the Karnataka police have assured their counterparts in Kerala that there will be no restrictions on vehicles carrying essential commodities.
Vijayan added that the Kerala government will stay in touch with the authorities in Karnataka to completely resolve the matter.
The new restrictions have created difficulties for people travelling from Kasaragod to Mangaluru for medical treatment. At least two patients had died after they were turned away from the Karnataka border in March last year, when the border restrictions were first imposed, according to The News Minute.
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s Kasaragod district President K Shreekanth said he had reached out to the Karnataka government for the lifting of travel restrictions. “We believe, restrictions will be lifted soon to benefit Students, Employees and others who travel daily between these 2 districts [Kasaragod and Dakshina Kannada],” he said in a tweet.
Kerala on Monday reported over 4,000 coronavirus cases, the second-highest number of daily infections after Maharashtra.
Last week, the Centre directed the states and Union Territories that have been experiencing a resurgence of coronavirus infections to improve the overall testing numbers by focusing on increasing the proportion of reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction or RT-PCR tests. The government also instructed them to regularly monitor cases of new mutant strains through testing followed by Genome Sequencing, while also keeping an eye on the emerging cluster of cases.
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