The Kerala government on Tuesday announced to lift Sunday lockdown and night curfew even when the state reporting over 19,000 daily Covid-19 cases and recently witnessed a death due to Nipah virus. The decision was taken in a Covid review committee meeting attended by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
After daily coronavirus cases rose to more than 30,000 after the Onam celebrations, Kerala had brought in night curfew from 10pm to 6am from Monday to Saturday to check the increasing numbers.
Speaking on Kerala High Court’s order which directed the Centre to allow scheduling, on CoWIN portal, of second Covishield dose after four weeks from the first for those who want to take it earlier than the present suggested gap of 84 days, the Chief Minister said, “The Kerala High Court order has said that Covishield second dose can be taken after four weeks. The central government has to take a decision on this but state is fully supporting this.”
COVID-19 CASES
Kerala on Monday reported 19,688 fresh Covid-19 cases and 135 deaths pushing the total infection count to 42,27,526 and the fatalities till date to 21,631, the state government said. The test positivity rate (TPR) was found to be 16.71 per cent after testing 1,17,823 samples in the last 24 hours, according to a state government release. With this, 3,25,08,136 samples have been tested till now, it said.
The bulletin also said that since Sunday, 28,561 people have recovered from the infection taking the total recoveries to 39,66,557 and the number of active cases to 2,38,782.Among the 14 districts of the state, Thrissur recorded the highest with 3,120 cases followed by Kozhikode (2,205), Ernakulam (2,029), Malappuram (1,695), Kollam (1,624), Palakkad (1,569), Thiruvananthapuram (1,483), Alappuzha (1,444), Kannur (1,262) and Kottayam (1,020), the release said.
NIPAH VIRUS
A 12-year-old boy died of Nipah virus infection in Kozhikode district of Kerala on September 3. Nipah is a zoonotic virus which spreads from animals to humans and also transmitted directly between people. It can cause acute respiratory illness and fatal encephalitis besides fever, headache, cough and throat pain, the DC said and asked the people to inform the health department immediately if any person is found experiencing the symptoms.
The Kerala government has also issued Nipah management plan listing the health protocol to be followed by government and private hospitals. The State Committee consists of the Chief Minister, Health Minister, Chief Secretary, Health Secretary, Disaster Management Additional Chief Secretary, Director of the Department of Health and the Director of Department of Health Education, the release said. State health minister Veena George said that healthcare workers, field workers, doctors and other staff of private hospitals, and others will be given special training. The minister also monitored the functioning of the Nipah control room at the Kozhikode guest house.
The health department had earlier identified 188 contacts of the child since August 27. The samples of seven people among the 20 high-risk contacts of the child have been sent to Pune NIV for testing and the result is awaited.
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