Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Monday said he would ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi for “more relaxations” and ruled out the possibility of the state government imposing further curbs as part of the Covid-19 containment. 

“We have no such plans,” Yediyurappa said when asked about imposing a curfew or lockdown-like restrictions going forward. “I will request the PM for more relaxations.” 

Under Unlock 1.0, several services and sectors such as metro, theatres, gyms, swimming pools, bars and others remain restricted. 

Modi is scheduled to hold talks with chief ministers starting Tuesday. He is slated to talk to Yediyurappa on Wednesday. 

“Let me tell you this…it is those coming from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi and other states who are carrying the virus. We haven’t seen any trouble from locals moving about. The problem is with those coming from outside. We need to stop them and place them under quarantine,” Yediyurappa said. 

Buttressing his point, Yediyurappa said out of 7,000 cases, 4,386 came from Maharashtra and another 1,340 from their contacts. “There are 216 foreigners, 87 from Delhi, 67 Tamil Nadu and 62 Gujarat,” he said. 

Yediyurappa chaired a meeting with officials to take stock of the Covid-19 situation in Bengaluru city. A task force headed by the BBMP commissioner has been constituted to focus on Covid-19 containment in the city’s municipal limits, Bengaluru Urban and Bengaluru Rural districts. As many as 17 sub-committees have been formed with specific focus areas such as containment, contact tracing, testing, home quarantine and so on.  

“There are indications that the coronavirus (cases) may increase in the coming days. I want to assure citizens that we’re taking all measures. Citizens also should cooperate by wearing masks and keeping social distancing,” he said. 

Dishing out statistics, Yediyurappa allayed fears that the pandemic was getting out of hand. “Karnataka’s mortality rate is 1.20% against the national average of 2.80%. Our recovery rate is 56.50% against the national 51%. We have 71 labs that have tested 4.40 lakh samples. For every 10 lakh persons, we have done 7,100 tests and this is more than the ICMR guidelines. Only 16 people across the state are in the ICU,” he said. 

“Karnataka has managed to control it better nationally. There’s no need for citizens to panic. We will do everything to make this right,” Yediyurappa said.