Two more positive cases have been reported in Kerala on Thursday taking the number of coronavirus infected people to 16, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said after a review meeting in the state capital.
He said out of two, one person in Kannur had come from Dubai and the other, a Thrissur resident, returned from Qatar about five days back. “The state is going through a difficult situation. But there is no need to panic. What we need is more surveillance and being alert. We will overcome this challenge also,” the CM said.
At least 4,180 people are under observation and out of these 3,910 are quarantined in their homes and 270 admitted to various hospitals with symptoms. More than 1200 people were let off after their results were found negative. He said samples of another person were rushed to the National Institute of Virology, in Pune, after some confusion crept in and it was expected in a day or two.
“What we need is responsible behaviour from all. We will give special care to the aged who are more prone to it. We have also got some reports that people under home quarantine came out and some others insulted foreigners. The government will deal with them sternly,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}“What we need is responsible behaviour from all. We will give special care to the aged who are more prone to it. We have also got some reports that people under home quarantine came out and some others insulted foreigners. The government will deal with them sternly,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}The CM has also inaugurated a mobile app on coronavirus. Called ‘GOK-Direct,’ it can be downloaded from Playstore and will give updates and messages frequently. It will also help check rumours doing the rounds. The government has given the responsibility of 14 districts to ministers and they will review the situation frequently. The CM has asked people to go with the directives of the health department. There is some silver lining also-- more than 40 people have tested negative including some who came from the worst-affected areas.
Earlier the state had gone into partial shutdown cancelling all public meetings and closing down educational institutions till March 31, to contain the spread. In Pathanamthitta, the district administration had prepared a flowchart of five affected people indicating the places they visited with time and around 120 people voluntarily came up for quarantine after seeing this map.
The state with the highest density of population in the country had pressed the emergency button after six cases surfaced on Tuesday. The fresh cases forced the state government to cancel all public events and close down educational institutions to contain the disease.
State health minister K K Shailaja has called for strict community surveillance, scaling up of contact tracing and tapping local bodies to stop the further spread of the deadly disease.
The state had reported India’s first three cases of coronavirus in January this year and they had fully recovered later. Similarly, two years back, the state had witnessed the outbreak of another dangerous virus, Nipah. Though it claimed 17 lives, it was localised and contained effectively. During the outbreak of Nipah, the mortality rate was more than 70% but in the case of coronavirus, it is less than 5 per cent, health experts said.