Kerala sees quantum jump in fresh COVID-19 cases: 29 new cases on Monday, 106 in six days

Kerala saw a disturbing spurt in fresh COVID-19 cases on Monday. The number of fresh cases on the day, 29, is the highest since March 31. There has been no recoveries, too, on Monday. With this, active cases in Kerala has shot up to 130, 106 of them recorded in the last six days.

Of the 29 new cases, one of them a two-year-old child, 28 came from outside: 21 from the Gulf and seven from other states. The child's mother, a Kozhikode native, had tested positive on May 14; the mother and child had returned from Abu Dhabi on May 8.

Sign of community transmission, yet again

One positive case, in Kannur, is a health worker whose sample was randomly taken for tests as part of the sentinel surveillance carried out to check the presence of community transmission.

This health worker's source of infection is not clear. This is the third positive case picked up by random surveillance in the last seven days with no known source of infection.

The government is loathe to admit, but this is further proof that there is silent transmission in the community. If today's case was picked up in Kannur, the other two random samples that had tested positive in the last seven days were an health worker in Kollam and a bakery owner in Idukki.

Kollam had the highest number of cases on the day. Thrissur has four, Thiruvananthapuram and Kannur three each, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha, Kottayam, Kozhikode and Kasaragod two each, and Ernakulam, Palakkad and Malappuram one each.

Malappuram now has the highest number of cases: 26. Kasaragod has 18, and Wayanad has 16. Idukki has the lowest number of active cases: One. In the first week of May, Kerala had eight COVID-free districts.

Wayanad normalising

Fears of an outbreak in Wayanad, and to a lesser extent in Kasaragod, have waned. For three days in a row, no new cases have been reported in Wayanad. All the policemen who had come into contact with a positive case, a local 'ganja' seller, while on duty in Wayanad had tested negative. A truck driver who had arrived from Koyambedu in Chennai has by now infected 15 in Wayanad, and was feared to be a super-spreader. With no new cases in the last three days, the transmission link looks broken.

The local CPM leader in Kasaragod who had given the virus to four in his family, too, has not turned out to be he super-spreader he was feared to be.

Threat by air

The influx is now the big worry. With more trains and planes set to reach Kerala during the second half of May, the number of fresh cases are bound to show a manifold increase.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that 38 aircraft carrying 6,530 passengers from the Gulf and other parts of the world like America, Britain, Russia and South East Asia would keep landing in Kerala till June 2.

The Centre has not heeded Kerala's request that passengers should be tested for COVID-19 before they board the aircraft. This has led to many infected persons returning to Kerala, most of them unaware of their condition.

However, some board the aircraft wilfully hiding the fact that they have COVID-19. A case has been registered against three passengers who had landed in Thiruvananthapuram from Abu Dhabi keeping their condition a secret. “It s not clear how they got into the flight. We will also ask the Centre to take up the issue with Abu Dhabi,” Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said.

Threat by road

The possibility of the infected arriving by road is also equally high. Most of those who are returning from other states come from highly vulnerable conditions. When they come in groups, the threat is multiplied.

Take for instance a 25-year-old who had returned from Colaba, Mumbai, and was declared positive on May 17. He works in a jewellery shop in Colaba, and lives with others in a cramped rented apartment. He travelled to Kerala in a private bus with 23 others.

Another person who was declared positive in Malappuram on May 17 was a 61-year-old, a self-employed man who sells tender coconut at the wayside in Mumbai city.

He lives in a slum in Mumbai's Madraswadi, and five people with whom he shared a lodging had COVID-19 symptoms. Yet, he was part of a group of 46 that rented two buses to reach Kerala.

A 23-year-old who came from Chennai was living with the family of his sister. All the seven members of the family had COVID-19 symptoms. He returned in a mini-van with 10 others, exposing all of them to the virus.

All the three developed symptoms the very next day of their return, which means they were infective during the return journey.

Their co-passengers are now at risk, and the government will have to deploy its already taxed resources to monitor these people.

Here is the district-wise break-up of today's positive cases:

Kollam - 6; Thrissur - 4 ; Thiruvananthapuram - 3; Kannur - 3; Pathanamthitta - 2; Alappuzha - 2; Kottayam - 2; Kozhikode - 2; Kasaragod - 2; Ernakulam - 1; Palakkad -1; Malappuram - 1

127 persons were admitted to the hospitals today.

Kerala has so far tested 45,905 samples out of which 44,651 returned negative.

Of the 5,154 samples taken from the high-risk groups as part of the sentinel survey, 5,082 were returned negative.

Of the 67,789 under observation, 67,316 have been home quarantined and 473 hospitalised.
On Monday, 127 were hospitalised. At present, the state has 290 hotspots.