Bars, pubs to open in Karnataka

Bengaluru: In a further easing of COVID lockdown restrictions, the Karnataka government has allowed bars, pubs, night clubs and microbreweries in the state, including capital Bengaluru, to serve alcohol from Today.

The new order from the excise department however said that the establishments will be allowed to operate at only 50% capacity and alcohol will be served only at tables.

The department also issued guidelines to be followed at restaurants, bars, hotels and other hospitality units. These included screening employees and customers for Covid-19 symptoms, maintaining physical distancing norms and encouraging take-away instead of dine-in.

 “Adequate personnel will be deployed at establishments to enforce social distancing norms,” the guidelines said.

The government also said that metro services will be operational from September 7 with reduced capacity.

Meanwhile, after consistently reporting over 8000 new Covid cases every day for the past week, the state on Monday saw a slight dip with only 6495 fresh cases, taking the total to 3,42,423. However, Covid-related deaths were high at 113, pushing the toll to 5702.

Bengaluru had 1862 new cases and 27 deaths followed by Mysuru (405 new Covid cases), Ballari 365 and Tumakuru 316.

Although Karnataka recorded the highest Covid-related deaths, the state’s overall case fatality rate has consistently stayed below 2%.

As of Monday, Karnataka had 5,702 deaths, accounting for 8.6% of the total fatalities in the country, but the case fatality rate (CFR) remained 1.7% — lower than the national average of 1.8%.

However, in terms of deaths per million, the state fares badly in comparison to the national average. Karnataka has 87.5 deaths per million people, while it is only 51.7 per million nationally.