For the fifth time in eight days, Kerala has not recorded a fresh COVID-19 case. The number of fresh cases added in May is five; May 1, 3, 4 and 6 were also zero-case days.
At the same time, five more had recovered, bringing the active cases in Kerala down to 25; of the five declared cured on Thursday, three are in Kannur and two in Kasaragod.
If it keeps true to its recovery rate of 11 per day for the last seven days, and if no new cases are reported in the coming days, Kerala could become COVID-free within three days.
The northernmost Kasaragod district, where 178 had contracted the virus and where it was feared the virus spread could spiral out of control, just one more COVID-19 patient remains to be cured. With 15 cases, Kannur has the highest number of active cases in the state now.
Impact on hotspots
The absence of new cases has not only obviated the declaration of new hotspots (areas where movements of people and vehicles restricted) but it has also allowed authorities to free 56 regions from their 'hotspot' classification. This has brought down the number of high risk areas to just 33.
Eight regions have been taken out of hotspots in Thiruvananthapuram, leaving the district with only two hotspots. Kannur, which had 23 hotspots, now has just 10. Seven hotspots in Kasaragod have been reduced to two. Idukki had 11, now it has just three. Kottayam also had 11, now it has only four. Kollam had eight, but now just two.
Higher influx, higher caution
However, with Keralites stranded in other states returning, the number under observation has gone up; if on May 6 there were 14,670 people under observation in Kerala, Thursday saw an increase to 16,693. Of the 2023 put under observation on Thursday, 131 have been admitted to isolation wards in hospitals. Now, Kerala has 310 people under hospital observation.
However, a persisting worry is the delayed declaration of samples taken from high-risk groups like healthcare workers and those with high social exposure like policemen and politicians.
Till now, 3035 samples have been taken from high-risk groups - - and 2337 samples have thrown up negative results. The results of 698 samples are still pending. The delayed declaration of results has induced in COVID warriors - doctors, nurses and policemen- an avoidable sense of uncertainty.
Marketplace of worries
On a landscape that is quickly getting cleansed of the virus, the shadow of Chennai's Koyambedu wholesale market has dimmed a bit of the shine. It is said that over 7,000 people who had visited the market in the last two weeks have been listed as COVID-19 suspects. Office-bearers of Koyambedu Traders' Association had said that some of them were from Kerala.
They mostly include drivers and co-passengers of trucks that transported items from Kerala – mostly pineapple farmed in Perumbavur, Vazhakkulam, Kothamangalam, Thodupuzha, Kottayam, Ranni, Erumeli, Punalur, Pathanapuram and Mundakkayam - to the market and then returned with other essential goods from the market in Tamil Nadu to various wholesale markets in Kerala. It is still not clear whether these truck drivers and their immediate contacts have been identified.
