india

Updated: Mar 14, 2020 02:41 IST

The Karnataka government on Friday issued an order closing all shopping malls, cinema halls, public swimming pools, gymnasiums and pubs starting Saturday for one week.

The government’s decision comes in the wake of the first confirmed death of a coronavirus (Covid-19) patient in the state. A 76-year-old resident of Kalburgi had returned from Saudi Arabia on February 29 and died on Tuesday night on his way back from Hyderabad to Kalaburgi.

Chief minister BS Yediyurappa held an emergency high-level meeting with senior health department officials to assess the overall preparedness of the state government.

Health minister B Sriramulu, minister for primary and secondary education S Suresh Kumar, medical education minister Dr K Sudhakar and deputy chief Minister Dr Ashwath Narayan were also present in the meeting.

The CM addressed the media after the meeting and appealed to the people to cooperate with the state government. “We will revisit the decision after a week. Till then I appeal to everybody to avoid all unnecessary travel.” All international travellers coming to Bengaluru will also be compulsorily quarantined for two weeks, the state government said.

Karnataka has reported five confirmed coronavirus cases and 982 people are under quarantine. Earlier, the government had issued orders for schools and universities to be closed. However, scheduled examinations like those for Grades 10 and 12 would be held.

The government also said that no conferences, temple fairs and big fat weddings would be permitted for the next one week.

However essential services, including medical, government offices, pharmacies, milk booths and public transport, would remain operational as usual. The government said that no person suspected of being infected will be allowed the right of refusal to treatment.

“If necessary the quarantine of such persons is mandatory irrespective of consent,” it said.

The government urged information technology and information technology-enabled services companies to allow their employees to work from home for a week.

A Flipkart spokesperson in a statement said: “In light of the current updates on the coronavirus [Covid-19] situation and keeping in mind the well-being of our employees, we have decided to extend work from home for our employees till the end of next week.”

Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce (KFCC) said that the industry body would suffer substantial losses because of the week-long shutdown.

KFCC Vice President Umesh Bankar said that the shutdown of movie theatres for a week and other activities connected to the industry would result in losses that could run up to ~80 crore.

Earlier, late on Thursday night global search giant Google acknowledged that the fifth person in Karnataka to test positive for coronavirus (Covid-19) was its employee and announced that as a matter of “abundance of caution, we are asking employees in that Bangalore office to work from home tomorrow [Friday].”

The Google employee had travelled to Greece.