the lockdown guidelines in respective regions and relaxations will be subject to strict adherence of the social distancing norms and sanitization of the workplaces. unlock-1 after a nine-week long lockdown, the government of karnataka, in line with the directions issued by the central government on the guidelines on the fifth phase of the lockdown and termed it "unlock-i", which was intended towards easing many restrictions imposed on inter-state and inter-state movement of people and goods. during the first phase of unlocking, which was to come into effect from 8 june, more relaxations were provided and a decision towards the opening of the religious places, hotels, malls, etc. was taken. the decision on reopening of educational institutions was deferred to july, the government sources, on the issue said: "the state government will hold consultations at the institution level with parents and other stakeholders." however, the rigorous restrictions shall remain in effect in the containment zones. initial success & 5t policy the policy of trace, track, test, treat and technology (5t) was pioneered by karnataka to fight the pandemic. during an interaction through the video conferencing, the prime minister of india, narendra modi, appreciated the state's efforts in combating the covid-19 spread and steps taken to unlock the economy with the gradual relaxation of the extended lockdown norms. the centre has asked the other states to adopt these best practices to their local context and replicate them for better management of the covid-19 pandemic. tracing more than 10,000 well-trained field staff carry out specific responsibilities for contact tracing as per the detailed plan designed by the state which prescribes step-by-step actions to be performed by each designated person. the contact tracing mobile app and web application are being used to overcome the huge quantum of work, genuine forgetfulness of the positive persons and attempts to hide facts due to various reasons. to identify, protect and treat high-risk population like the elderly, persons with co-morbidities, pregnant women and those with influenza-like illness, severe acute respiratory illness (sari) on priority, karnataka has conducted a physical and phone-based household survey. the survey was carried out during may 2020 and covered 15.3 million households out of a total of 16.8 million total households in karnataka. polling booth level officers (blo) were engaged to collect necessary information by using a health survey app as well as a web application. the data collected through the survey was complemented by the information already available with the health department for pregnant mothers and tuberculosis, hiv, dialysis and cancer patients. an outreach campaign through apthamitra teleconsultation helpline (call no. 14410) set up by the state government, with support from nasscom, is being used to reach out to the households at risk through interactive voice response system (ivrs) and outbound calls. tracking all persons returning or travelling to karnataka are required to register on the "seva sindhu" portal, which enables the state to follow them for the next few days when they are at home or in institutional quarantine. the 'quarantine watch app' is used to assist the field workers in enforcing the quarantine. the state government has also formed mobile squads for the enforcement of home quarantine through community participation. in case information about violation of quarantine is received from a neighbour or some member of the public, that violator is moved to institutional quarantine. treatment according to data from the karnataka state covid-19 war room, the state has 84,776 beds in its districts, of which 21,728 have been reserved for covid-19. a total of 19,639 beds were available in bengaluru urban and rural districts. and of these, 3,470 were reserved for covid-19 in the two districts. more than 86% of the 21,728 beds were isolation beds — 6,695 with oxygen facilities, 2,105 icu beds, and 1,000 with ventilators. with the number of covid-19 cases in karnataka going up, the hospital bed occupancy in karnataka which was at less than 2% until 8 may, had shot up to 13.1% by 9 june. the karnataka government issued an order to fix the rates for covid-19 treatment in private hospitals. the rates range from ₹5,200 to ₹25,000 depending on the category and severity of infection and can be availed by both ayushman bharat-arogya karnataka (ab-ark) patients and other insurance/cash paying patients. the state government also directed 50% of beds in private hospitals having facilities to treat covid-19 patients should be reserved for patients referred from public health authorities. technology karnataka was among the many states which decided to turn to technology to help government officials manage the number of tasks cropping up due to the covid-19 pandemic. through a team of in-house programmers, the state rolled out a series of mobile applications in first three months on the pandemic in the country including a contact tracing application. apart from the application for contact tracing, the state also introduced the 'quarantine watch', to keep a watch over and enforce quarantine of travellers who returned to karnataka, 'yatri web app' to track international arrivals and the 'critical patient tracking system' to track all critical patients in the state. other applications were created like the 'daily rail and air passenger arrival tracking' to track arrivals of people coming into the state and the 'health watch app' which recorded data of the door-to-door survey done by health workers and identified vulnerable households. the data collected was transferred to other applications like the aapthamithra and was used by the health department to follow up. testing by june 2020, the state was conducting an average of 10,000 tests per day. the state contains 74 laboratories for testing compared to the total of 600 labs in the whole country. due to the rising covid cases, the karnataka government said that it was planning to initially increase testing capacity to 15,000 and then to 25,000 samples a day. the karnataka government directed the conduction of random testing using rt-pcr pooled sample technique, for slum dwellers, vendors/bill collectors, delivery boys of food chains and couriers, to ensure effective surveillance in view of recent increase in covid-19 cases in the state. indian scientists at institute of genomics and integrative biology, using crispr gene editing tool developed a low cost paper-strip test for covid-19, which could give results in an hour. the estimated cost of the paper-strip test could be around ₹500 (us$6.30).currently, the kits are being tested for its accuracy and sensitivity. the team is awaiting approval from indian council of medical research. surge after unlock following unlock-1, there was significant surge in the cases throughout the state, specially in the capital bengaluru. the number of cases increased from 11,005 just on 26 june to 23,474 by 5 july. local lockdowns due to the increasing number of cases in several parts of the state, many districts reintroduced lockdown measures. chief minister bs yediyurappa announced that the bengaluru will be under lockdown from 14 july for a period of 7 days to control the spread of the disease. following bengaluru, a total lockdown was reimposed in three more karnataka districts– dakshina kannada, dharwad and kalaburagi– for a period of 7–10 days. impact economy coronavirus clampdown hits over 1 crore jobs, the government's orders on friday to close down places of commerce, industry and social assembly to prevent coronavirus cases from snowballing has seen the city devolve into a veritable ghost town in just the first 24 hours of the clampdown. at the same time, the city's purchasing and economic power has also dwindled. as financial experts across the gamut scrambled to decipher the scale of the losses, b. t. manohar, a tax expert for federation of karnataka chambers of commerce and industry warned that the loss of goods & services tax, and sales tax revenue alone for the state exchequer would amount to a staggering rs 2,000 crore, if the clampdown lasted for even a single week. education due to the national-wide lockdown, the karnataka government has postponed the sslc (10th grade) exams indefinitely. the government has also cancelled the annual exams for students up to and including 9th standard. the state education department has also issued an order to all schools in the state to postpone their admission processes until further notice. entertainment owing to the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, all the theatres in the state were ordered to close. film production activities, which provide a livelihood to thousands in the state, were also suspended. soorappa babu, a producer of several well-known kannada films like kotigobba, opined that pandemic and the lockdown will lead to a loss of nearly ₹ 200 crores for the kannada film industry. makers of several small budget kannada films were considering skipping theatrical releases and opt for ott platforms like amazon prime in the future. following the pandemic, the shooting of tv shows came to a standstill in karnataka, forcing makers to re-air old episodes or end their serials abruptly. the pandemic also impacted theatre artists severely. many theatre groups are dependent on performing at annual fairs and chariot festivals of deities across the state, which occur mostly from january to april. all such gatherings and religious events were not permitted due to the lockdown. statistics total confirmed cases, active cases, recoveries and deaths total confirmed cases active cases recoveries deaths daily new cases new cases per day daily new deaths new deaths per day daily new tests new tests per day misinformation the department of animal husbandry and fisheries of karnataka has issued a public notification against rumors that the coronavirus spreads from poultry. it has advised people not to heed to such social media messages as there is no scientific evidence of corona viral infection in poultry. it is made clear that this virus spread from contact with infected persons only. similarly, an employee of an it firm was booked by the bengaluru central crime branch in a case for sharing objectionable content on social media. some residents of padarayanapura, a suburb of bangalore resorted to rioting and destroying bbmp assets at the location and attacked bbmp and health officials, when they arrived at the site to take some of the primary and secondary contacts of infected persons to government run quarantine facility. the police have registered fir against 67 residents of the area for rioting. jameer ahmad, a local political leader commented; the incident that led to rioting and arson was due to misinformation and lack of awareness among the residents and officials should have taken my permission to visit the site. some residents, even argued that the officials should take people to quarantine facility in the presence of elected representatives.