With fresh cases crossing the dreaded three-figure mark to touch 111 on Friday, it appears as if divine intervention alone is the way out. From such a theistic perspective, the controlled opening of places of worship from June 8 looks fitting.
Along with places of worship, all set to open on June 8 are restaurants, hotels, shopping malls and offices. Realisation has dawned that there is no salvation in hiding from the microscopic devil.
It is time to get out, but making sure that social distancing and 'break the chain' commands are religiously followed.
Therefore, from a virus containment perspective, the situation has turned out to be more challenging than ever before. The initial opening up has already caused an explosion of new cases.
Virus is just warming up
At the moment only 1.77 lakh have returned from abroad and other states. Even at this stage the 100 mark has been breached. Health officials say 200 would be breached in 10 days.
More than four lakh are waiting to return; over one lakh Malayalis from abroad alone are expected to land this month itself.
The larger influx of Malayalis stranded outside will now coincide with the wider opening up of the society. This is a highly combustible petrol-matchbox mix.
The infectivity of those returning is also high. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that 93,783 or 63 per cent of the 1,46,670 people who had by now returned from other states had come from "extreme virus spread" areas.
By now, 1,46,670 people from other states have returned and 337 of them have been declared positive, an infection rate of 0.22 per cent. In the same time, 30,363 have returned from abroad and 343 of them were virus carriers, a positivity of 1.13 per cent.
Reality of community spread
Community transmission already looks like a reality though the chief minister is still in denial. He is willing to concede only this much: "We are on the edge of community spread."
Signs of community transmission have become hard to miss. On Friday, only 10 of the 111 positive cases have acquired the infection from contact. The remaining are returnees. The government sees this as indication of negligent transmission.
Fact is, innumerable cases with no known source of infection have in the last two days mushroomed in various parts of the state.
A fisherman's death
Take Kavanadu in Kollam, for instance. 65-year-old Xavier who was found dead in his house was, to the shock of everyone, declared positive. No one knows where this man, a fisherman with no travel history, got his infection from. Till his death, there were no known cases in Kavanadu or in neighbouring wards in a radius of five kilometres.
Today, two in his family, including his wife, were declared positive. Xavier was a constant presence in the Kavanadu town and had attended many group prayers.
From Payyoli to Bahrain
Far north in Kozhikode's Payyoli municipality, a man who had left for Bahrain a day ago tested positive for COVID-19 when he landed at Bahrain early today. (He is not among the 111 new cases reported today.)
Before he left, the man had gone about his routine as though he was not infected and is said to have come into contact with many people in Payyoli municipality, especially in its Bhajanamadam ward.
Secret rendezvous
Closer to the centre in Thrissur, in Cherpu panchayat's Urakam ward, a 51-year-old junior health nurse linked to the Porathussery community health centre was declared positive. She is the first known COVID-19 case in the whole of Cherpu.
The nurse had a sore throat she is suspected to have contracted from her son who is said to have developed fever recently. He is yet to be tested. However, the son has been at his house for over one-and-a-half months.
"In March, at the start of the lockdown, the boy's marriage was fixed with a girl in Pathanamthitta. Then, when the boy visited the girl's house in Pathanamthitta, the locals had a problem. After that, to our knowledge, he has not left his house," said Haseena Akbar, Urakam ward member.
But these are times when everything is looked upon with suspicion. "We have to ask the boy whether he had secretly visited Pathanamthitta recently to see the girl," she added.
Orphan cases in Palakkad
To the west in Palakkad, three health workers of Palakkad District Hospital and an employee of Kerala Medical Services Corporation were declared positive on Friday. They were probably infected in the hospital but from whom is a mystery that does not look likely to be solved.
Near shut down in Kozhikode
A bit north in Kozhikode, a pregnant woman on whom an emergency operation had to be done was declared positive on Friday. Nearly 100 health workers, including specialist doctors and paramedics, have been asked to go into quarantine. Being an emergency operation, the pregnant woman was attended to by a long line of specialists: the cardiothoracic surgeon, urologist, paediatrician, gynaecologist, all of whom are now in quarantine.
The woman comes from Maniyur in Kozhikode where no COVID-19 cases have been reported. There is also a fear that she could have contracted the virus from the hospital.
Finally, antibody tests to begin
Even if the government is still loath to accept the reality of community spread, it has decided to introduce antibody tests in a big way. The chief minister said Kerala had received 14,000 kits from Indian Council of Medical Research.
"Already 10,000 kits have been dispatched to various districts. We will get 40,000 kits more in three days. Our objective is to conduct 15,000 antibody tests a week from now on," the chief minister said.
The first set of antibody kits secured from China were found to be faulty and were withdrawn. Sources said the ICMR had waited for more than a month to get a more refined antibody test kit.
The kits that have now got the ICMR approval are manufactured by Roche Pharma.
