That the number of fresh COVID-19 cases has crossed 90, touching 94, on Thursday is not a surprise. This comes after two consecutive days of 80-plus new cases. Three-figure daily numbers have already been anticipated.
But what is of surprise are the increasing fatalities. Three have been reported on Thursday.
Just to offer perspective, three was the number of deaths in the first 100 days. The total number of deaths, including Mahe's Mehroof who died in Kannur and whom Kerala has not added in its list of fatalities, has touched 15; and 11 of them had happened in the last 28 days.
Just three days ago, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said Kerala's death rate was 0.5 per cent. Now, the death rate is near one per cent (0.94 per cent).
Ominous Thursday
All the three deaths reported on Thursday had happened few days before; 67-year-old Xavier (Kollam) had died four days ago, and the two other deaths, that of 26-year-old Shabnaz (Malappuram) and 73-year-old Meenakshi Ammal (Palakkad), had happened two days ago. All their samples were tested after their death.
Meenakshi Ammal had returned from Chennai on May 20 and was admitted to Palakkad District Hospital on May 28 after she developed high fever. She was a chronic diabetes patient and had cardiovascular troubles. The virus attack had amplified her existing conditions leading to her death.
Shabnaz was suffering from blood cancer and she arrived from Ajman in United Arab Emirates with her husband and twin kids (boy and a girl) on May 20. She was taken straight to Thrissur Medical College from the airport. Later, she was shifted to a private hospital in Kozhikode for surgery. She died two days after the surgery. The serum sample taken after her death was declared positive on Thursday.
Her husband and sister, who was with her to care for her, have also been declared positive today. Her twins are said to be negative.
Mystery death in Kollam
In both these cases, Meenakshi Ammal's and Shabnaz's, it can be said with a high degree of certainty that they had come infected from outside.
But Xavier's death was sudden and his source of infection a troubling mystery. He is the first positive case in Kavanadu and nearby areas. There was a positive case in Kureepuzha, a place far across the lake from Kavanadu. But that was in late March and no more cases were reported.
Xavier is a fisherman who is not known to have ventured far out of Kavanadu. "He had even stopped going fishing," said Kavanadu councillor Rajalekshmi Chandran. "His house is by the roadside and even last week we had seen him with his grandchildren in his arms," she said.
Till now, no one has even suspected that he had died of COVID-19. "His contact list would be long," Rajalekshmi said. Xavier's large family lived in a cramped house in a colony of government-funded budget houses for the poor, a 'laksham veedu colony'.
On the day Xavier died, Rajalekshmi said there was a group prayer around the dead body inside the congested house.
Health officials say Kavanadu area would now have to be seen as a place where there is silent transmission of the virus and tests should be done in a big way in the area. The area has still not been declared a containment zone. The announcement is expected on Friday.
Threat of un-lockdown
It was already known that the unlocking process would heighten the exposure to the virus and this has now been demonstrated in quite a dramatic fashion in Wayanad.
Four migrant workers engaged in the construction of a five star resort at Poolavayal near Sultan Bathery were found positive on June 3. The site is a place where trucks carrying supplies from high-risk neighbouring states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka converge. The quick conclusion, therefore, is that the infection has come from outside.
There were over 150 workers at the site, including locals. Other migrant workers, 24 of them, who were sharing a large dormitory with the four now declared positive, have been asked to go into quarantine. Headload workers who unloaded the materials from the trucks have also been asked to go into quarantine.
Hospitals or virus hotbeds
Hospitals are now feared to be sources of infection. Kerala already has over 30 cases of health care workers getting infected, and these include even those not working in COVID-19 isolation wards.
The death of a 77-year-old priest has now made the connection doubtlessly direct. How could a man who had been in government hospitals - Thiruvananthapuram Medical College and Peroorkada District Hospital - for over one-and-a-half months be infected other than from within these hospitals? If the hospitals were indeed the sources, do we have individual patients who have returned home from the hospitals to form undetected disease clusters in the community?
More such potential hospital infections are cropping up. A 55-year-old woman who was declared positive in Wayanad on June 3 was a dialysis patient who had undergone dialysis in both private and government hospitals in Wayanad.
Health officials say the Wayanad woman's infection could not be linked to hospitals with certainty as her husband had visited Bangalore and was in quarantine. The husband's samples have been taken to see if he too is infected.
If he is not, the chances of hospital infection would be considered highly likely.
Active cases near 900
With 94 new cases, the number of active cases in Kerala has shot up to 884. However, Thursday also saw the highest recovery ever: 39.
Of the 94 declared positive on Thursday, 47 had come from abroad and 37 from other states. Seven had got the infection as a result of contact with imported cases. It is not clear whether positive cases among health workers were picked up on Thursday.
For the second consecutive day, it was a southern district that topped the daily tally of fresh cases today: Pathanamthitta with 14 new cases (it has just a single recovery).
Kasaragod had the second highest number, 12, with no recoveries. Kollam had 11 new cases with no recoveries. Kozhikode has 10 with five recoveries. Alappuzha has eight with no recoveries. Malappuram has eight new cases but has as many recoveries, too. Kannur has seven new cases but the same number has recovered. Palakkad also has seven new cases but it had the highest number of recoveries today (13).
Kannur has six new cases but more number, seven, recovered. Kottayam has five new cases but no recoveries. Thiruvananthapuram, too, has five new cases but had a single recovery. Thrissur has four new cases and had two recoveries as well. Ernakulam has two new cases, but no recoveries. Wayanad offset its two new cases with two recoveries.
100-plus districts go up
There are now three districts with more than 100 active cases: Palakkad - 144, Kannur - 112, and Kasaragod - 109. And there are five districts with more than 50 cases: Malappuram, 86; Thrissur - 65; Alappuzha - 65; Kollam - 62; Thiruvananthapuram - 58.
Of the 1,70,065 people under observation for suspected infection, 1,68,088 are home/institutional quarantined and 1,340 hospitalised. As many as 225 people were hospitalised on Sunday.
Of the 76,383 samples sent for tests, 72,139 have turned negative. Samples of 18,146 people among priority groups were tested as part of sentinel surveillance. Of them, 15,264 have turned negative. In the past 24 hours, 3,787 samples were sent for tests.
There are 124 hotspots in the state. Four places in Kannur, three in Kollam and two in Palakkad were added to the list on Thursday.
