<span style="color: #222222;">Karnataka Health and Medical Education Minister Dr. K Sudhakar has said that guidelines for the new year celebrations will be announced soon after holding discussions with the Home ministry in the State. Addressing media persons in Bengaluru today, Dr. Sudhakar said that the Health Department is faced with a new challenge of containing a new variant of the Coronavirus. </span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">He informed that 1,638 out of 2,500 returnees from the UK have been tested and 14 among them were found positive. Their swab samples were sent to NIMHANS for gene sequencing to find out whether it is the new strain of the COVID virus. The report, he added, will be sent to ICMR. He assured that all necessary precautions are taken at airports, including the arrangement to conduct the COVID tests.</span><br />''