COVID-19 | Karnataka reports 832 new cases, eight deaths

Karnataka on Friday reported 832 new cases of COVID-19, taking the total to 30,07,337. Bengaluru Urban reported 656 cases and five deaths.

With the eight deaths, the State's toll rose to 38,335. This is apart from 29 deaths of patients due to non-COVID-19 reasons.

As many as 335 persons were discharged on Friday, taking the total recoveries to 29,60,261. The State now has 8,712 active patients.

While the positivity rate for the day touched 0.70%, the Case Fatality Rate touched 0.96%.

As many as 1,17,917 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, including 95,815 RT-PCR tests. With this, the total number of tests rose to 5,64,68,197.

Child vaccinations

The State has geared up to start paediatric vaccinations from January 3. Arundathi Chandrashekar, State Mission Director, National Health Mission, said as many as 31.75 lakh children in the 15 years to 17 years age group have been identified as the target population for this drive. Only Covaxin will be administered in doses of 0.5 ml. It will be given free of cost in all schools.

“Teams of vaccinators will go to schools and PU/paramedical colleges to administer the jab from January 3. Those who are still having online classes, especially private schools, have been directed to schedule a particular day and ask their students to come to schools to take the jab,” she said.

“We intend to take up the programme intially in schools and colleges. Only if required we will open up the sessions in hospitals. However, private hospitals are free to start child vaccinations provided they have separate sessions for this group as only Covaxin has to be administred,” she explained.

Children who have taken other routine vaccines are eligible for COVID vaccination after a gap of 15 days. The second COVID dose will be administered after a gap of 28 days. Registration on the CoWIN portal can be done using the parents or school principal’s number, she said.

Appealing to people to get their children vaccinated, she said there is no need to worry about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines. “The government has rolled out vaccines for children after a lot of research,” the official added.