On the 119th day after the first COVID-19 case was reported, the number of confirmed cases in Kerala crossed 1,000 on Wednesday. It is now 1,004.
Nearly 45 per cent, or 445 cases, got added in the last 14 days. It took 105 days to record 559 cases till May 14. The influx of Malayalis from outside have caused a near explosion of COVID-19 cases in Kerala.
It is only a fraction of those who had registered with the government portal that had returned. Till May 27, 1.05 lakh Keralites, from both abroad and other states, have returned. But official sources say more than 6 lakh had already applied.
Deadly mix and surprise entries
The inevitability of more arrivals will overlap with the new reality of a relaxed lockdown. Epidemiologists consider this a highly combustible mix.
There is the additional burden of people sneaking in without valid passes. Ward-level committees across the state have reported nearly 4000 cases of people entering the state without passes.
"Besides putting unnecessary strain on the state's resources, these arrivals would seriously unsettle the functioning of the system. We will have no idea what to do with them. We will not know whether these people have the right room quarantine facilities at their homes or whether they even have a home. If they had registered in the covidjagrutha portal, we would make a visit to ther homes before their arrival to ensure proper room quarantine," a top official in the Local Self Government Department said.
After a high of 68 cases on May 26, Wednesday saw a relatively low number of fresh COVID-19 cases, 40, which is still higher than the daily tally till May 21.
Of the 40 new cases, 28 are from other states (Maharashtra - 16; Tamil Nadu - 5; Telengana - 1; Delhi - 3; Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh - one each). Nine are from abroad and three are said to be primary contacts of those already infected.
Surge in Palakkad
It was Kasaragod that has the highest number of new cases on the day, 10. Palakkad has eight; Alappuzha, seven; Kollam, four; Pathanamthitta and Wayanad, three each; Kozhikode and Ernakulam, two each; and Kannur, one.
Palakkad now has the highest number of active cases, 90. Kannur has 77, Malappuram has 47 (six had recovered in the district on Wednesday) and Kasaragod 49 (there were two recoveries on Tuesday). Except for Idukki (2), the number of active cases in all the other 13 districts are in double figures. There was one recovery each in Wayanad and Alappuzha.
Family clusters
It has now been found that family clusters are also growing in Kerala. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, too, made a reference to such clusters during his customary sunset briefing in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday.
"This has happened because those with high possibility of infection are not taking the necessary precautions, endangering the health of others in the family," the chief minister said.
Take the case of Asiya, the 61-year-old Kannur native who had died in Kozhikode Medical College on May 25. Eleven in her family had tested positive. And this include her husband, two sons, one daughter, two daughters-in-law and five grand children.
It is said her husband and son are fish vendors in Thalassery market and they regularly travel across the border to fetch fish.
Inadequate preventive measures at the point of boarding has also exposed entire families to infection.
On May 26, four in a family were tested positive; a 27-year-old woman, her one-and four-year-old daughters, and her 58-year-old mother. They had arrived in the Abu Dhabi-Thiruvananthapuram flight on May 26. They were seated near a person who had earlier tested positive.
This once again underlines the importance of prior testing before getting into the aircraft.
Outdoor quarantine
Disregard for room quarantine could also spell trouble for families. A man who had come infected from Mumbai on May 22 has now infected his father and seven-month-old baby.
Though home quarantine has worked for Kerala, violations are also quite common. Between May 4 and 25,453 cases of quarantine violation have been charged in Kerala. 145 of them were detected when officials visited the homes, 48 violations were reported by neighbours, and 260 were detected using technologies like mobile apps.
Threat of a wandering tippler
Gypsy-like wanderings during the lockdown period are also problematic. Take for instance, a remand prisoner who was tested positive. He was nabbed when, in a drunken stupor, his car had hit a policeman in a motorbike. Though he tested positive on May 25, he turned negative the very next day.
This indicated that the man was tested after his viral load had turned non-infective. He would have been infected longer than it was actually thought, perhaps by the second week of May. It has now been confirmed that his wild wanderings in search of liquor since May 11 had him crossing the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border several times.
The huge contact list, over 200, the district authorities have drawn up has only his recent contacts. Now, the trouble is, they have to find his primary contacts during the time he was highly infective, during the 4th, 5th and 6th days of his infection.
