Six persons tested positive for coronavirus on Monday, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan informed.
All of them are from Kannur district. Five came from abroad and one contrated the diseases through contact.
As has been the trend in the last eight days, recovery far outstripped the new cases on Monday, too. On the day, 21 had recovered. Of these, 19 are from Kasaragod, two from Alappuzha.
Kannur's burgeoning worry
The consistently huge recovery rate in Kasaragod had quite abruptly brought down the active cases in the district to 27, which is nearly half the number of active cases in Kannur. Till April 19, Kasaragod had the highest number of active cases. At 169, it still has the highest number of confirmed cases.
It now looks like Kannur is emerging as the new hotspot. More than the fact that it now has the highest number of active cases, what is worrying is the continued declaration of more foreign returnees in Kannur as COVID-19 positive.
Health officials maintain that they are not infective as most of them are asymptomatic and also that their long incubation periods are a sign of weak infection. However, there is no certainty that their incubation period is prolonged. It was just that they were tested late.
Late positives and contact tracing
The delayed emergence is not an issue Kerala can take lightly. A recent study in the reputed journal Nature had said that the shedding of viral RNA from sputum outlasted even the end of symptoms. Meaning, the infected can pass on the virus even after the symptoms had subsided.
One unseemly bulge under the exquisite flooring of Kerala's containment strategy is the non-aggressive contact tracing of foreign returnees who test positive very late. In Kerala, contact tracing begins only after a person tests positive. When quarantined returnees are declared positive after 25 or 29 days, here is no haste to go after people they could have come in contact with.
Their close relatives would be isolated and tested, nothing more. The stock reply is these 'late bloomers' are not infective. But what of the people they could have come across when they were highly infective? By then some of their possible primary contacts, outside the close family unit, would have also developed symptoms.
This, experts say, is keeping Sars-CoV-2, which is inexplicably mild in Kerala, sluggishly active.
Italian's safe haven
The day also saw the Italian tourist, Roberto Tonizzo, who at one point had triggered fears of community transmission in Thiruvananthapuram, leaving for Italy. Clearly, Tonizzo was lucky to be in Kerala at the time of the outbreak. It was not just Kerala's super-efficient response to the crisis, the virus also showed its shy diffident side here.
The highly charged Italian tourist was said to have come into close contact with at least 700 locals in Varkala; there was not a temple festival or a DJ party he had missed during late February and early March. Yet, he did not infect a single person. Tonizzo's encounter with the virus was one more proof of uncharacteristically sluggish behaviour of Sars-CoV-2 virus in Kerala.
Other notable announcements from CM's press meet:
• Kerala is ready to face any emergency situation.
• Kerala is being applauded across the world for its collective efforts.
• Laurels from people including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi are for health workers who risk their lives to save others.
• State is ready to take care of all expatriates if the Centre makes arrangements to bring them home.
• Expatriates should stay back wherever they are until the Centre arranges the facilities to fly them back.
• State is readying facilities to quarantine 2 lakh people.
• We are still going through the stage where eternal vigilance is needed.