COVID-19: 10 UK returnees test positive in Karnataka amid fears of mutant strain

As many as 10 passengers who returned from the UK since November 25 tested positive for COVID-19 so far, Karnataka Health and Family Welfare Minister K Sudhakar said on Friday (December 25).

"According to information I possess, 10 people tested positive, all their samples have been sent to NIMHANS, two to three days are required for genetic sequencing... once that report is out, we will get to know whether it is the second strain, and accordingly we will follow necessary procedures for treatment," he said in reply to a question at a press meet.

According to Sudhakar, details relating to this second strain are still being deliberated and as per initial studies, another strain of the coronavirus discovered in South Africa is far more severe than the one found in the UK.

"We can take action only after we get the reports of these 10 positive patients. As we get (them), we will take necessary steps. I appeal the people to have faith in the government, before taking any decision we think hundred times. Protecting the health of the people is our chief concern," he further said.

The minister had recently said that about 2,500 people had come to the state from the UK from November 25 to December 22 in flights operated by Air India and British Airways, and efforts were on to trace, monitor their health, and subject them to tests.

Responding to criticism against the government, the minister observed that this was the very government that achieved a recovery rate of 97.5 per cent and brought down fatality rate to 1.22 per cent.

"After the new variant was discovered, countries like Britain and Germany have adopted stringent measures like ordering lockdown and later enforcing curfew. What does this indicate?" he asked.

The state government had announced that it would enforce an eight-day night curfew amid concerns over a new COVID-19 variant spreading in the UK, but on Thursday (December 24), it finally decided to withdraw the curfew just hours before it was to be enforced.

Several ministers in the cabinet took objections to the decision to enforce night curfew while the opposition had expressed apprehensions whether it would help in containing the virus spread, considering curfew timing was between 11 pm to 5 am.