covid19jagratha.kerala.nic.in portal will be asked to part with a hefty fine and forced into a 28-day quarantine in a government facility at their cost.
Trains will also be allowed to enter Kerala only if the passengers to Kerala have registered in the portal. The Pinarayi government has moved swiftly to abort two trains from Mumbai in the last two days because the Railways gave tickets to even those who had not registered with Kerala government's official portal.
A passenger undergoes thermal screening after arriving at Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport following the resumption of domestic flight services after a gap of two months, during the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown, in Guwahati, Tuesday, May 26, 2020. (PTI Photo)(PTI26-05-2020_000105A)
“Malayalis wanting to return should register with the government's portal. Only then can we know who they are and whether their homes have facilities for room quarantine,” Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said during his customary sunset briefing in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday.
Perhaps to discourage more people from flying back, it has also been decided that the returnees would henceforth bear the entire cost of the mandatory institutional quarantine they will have to undergo.
Tests will also be ramped up. Plan is to test at least 3,000 samples a day. At the moment, it is 9,000 a week.
Over 2,000 returnees could be infected
Till May 25, 11,189 Malayalis have returned from abroad. Of this, 133 or 1.19 per cent of them have tested positive. Official figures say 1.34 lakh have applied through the official portal for return. If all of them return, at the existing 1.19 per cent rate of infection, 1,595 of them would be infected.
As for Malayalis in other states, 1,01,779 have returned. Of this, 178 or 0.17 per cent have tested positive. It is said that 3.80 lakh people have registered through the government's portal to return from other states. If all of them arrive, at the 0.17 rate of infection, 646 of them would be infected.
Together, 2,241 returnees would be infected. Health experts warned it could be more because many who had returned will test positive in the coming days.
Community spread: Still in denial
The chief minister continued to insist that there was, as yet, no community transmission in Kerala. However, he said we were on the edge of such a community spread.
In the last four days, 31 people have acquired the infection through contact. The source of infection of at least 15, including health workers, remain a mystery.
Unlike other individuals, an health worker is exposed to the virus on all sides; she is like a soldier who enters enemy territory with no cover.
It would be futile to trace her source of infection. It could have been anyone; probably a patient she had cared for, or someone within the family with a travel history, or a silent virus carrier in the community like the dealer or owner of a ration shop or provision store she regularly visits.
Community medicine experts say rather than look for an elusive source it would be better to consider the entire community around the health worker, a panchayat or a taluk, as a transmission cluster and ramp up testing in the area. The government has now decided to conduct 3,000 tests a day from May 27.
In search of origins
Tracing the source of infection is, however, advisable in the case of positive cases who are not considered to have high social exposure. Already, the health authorities have set out to find how three such individuals had go infected.
One of them is Asiya, the 61-year-old Kannur native who had died in Kozhikode Medical College on May 25. Her husband, who is a fish vendor in Thalassery market, and other family members have also tested positive.
The other is a tribal woman of Ayyankunnu pachayat in Kannur who had delivered on the day she was declared positive. No cases have been reported from her area, and none who lives in her colony has a travel history. However, three nurses in Kannur District Hospital, where she was taken to after she complained of severe stomach ache, have tested positive.
The third person with a mystery source is a Kasaragod man who was rushed to Pariyaram Medical College after he fell from a jackfruit tree and damaged his spine. Neither the man nor any of his relatives have a travel history.