Karnataka mulls banning fireworks this Deepavali to safeguard COVID-19 patients

Karnataka Health Minister Dr Sudhakar said a final decision is yet to be made by Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa.
Firecrackers
Firecrackers
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Following states like Rajasthan, Odisha, West Bengal and Haryana, the state government in Karnataka is also mulling a ban of fireworks this Deepavali. This as firecrackers which a re known pollutants are slated to severely impact already infected COVID-19 patients. However, speaking with the Times of India, Karnataka Health Minister Dr Sudhakar said a final decision is yet to be made by Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa.

The  New Indian Express  quoted a senior health ministry official saying a round of meetings have already been held between the government and members of the technical committee appointed for COVID-19 management.

The committee has told the government including the CM that COVID-19 is known to affect lungs of patients and leave them vulnerable even in the post-recovery period. While the patient’s respiratory system is affected due to the disease, immune responses of patients are also left in a bad state.

This comes as Karnataka has seen an improvement in the positivity and fatality rate for COVID-19 cases over the past two months.  Incidentally, on Tuesday, Karnataka reported 2,756 new cases and 7,140 recoveries across the state in a single day. With these, the number of cumulative positive cases in the state rose to 8,32,396. The bulletin said, "Positivity rate was 2.91% and case fatality rate 0.94% for the day across the state,"

Earlier this week Dr P Raghu Ram, President, The Association of Surgeons of India told NDTV there is strong evidence to link air pollution and severity of COVID-19 infection. He said the rate of people getting infected with COVID-19 were higher in number in places with more polluted air. He added that effects of air pollution also put those who have recovered of COVID-19 at a higher risk of other related ailments. Further research has shown that higher exposure to polluted air can be linked with higher COVID-19 mortality, he said.

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