The Hassan district authorities in Karnataka are subjecting all students from Kerala to COVID-19 tests as 38 Kerala-returned nursing students tested positive for the infection till Friday.

The authorities have sealed a PG hostel facility and quarantined 27 primary contacts. The 38 Kerala students had arrived in Karnataka to write nursing exams a week ago. Though they had come with COVID-19 negative reports but the Hassan district authorities conducted COVID-19 tests on the students. The authorities received the reports of 21 girl students testing positive on Thursday and 17 students' reports came on Friday. All students belong to the same college.

The health officials immediately swung into action and sealed the Nisarga Paying Guest hostel. All the 27 primary contacts of 21 students who tested positive for COVID-19 have been quarantined. The authorities are now subjecting all students from Kerala to COVID-19 tests. A large number of students had enrolled for nursing and other courses in Hassan city. Meanwhile, people staged a protest outside the residence of the Deputy Commissioner, R Girish for non-availability of vaccines. The protestors maintained that they have been waiting for more than a week for the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.