One more person died of COVID-19 in Kerala on Tuesday.

The deceased, Vasanthakumar, 68, was a native of Mayyanad in Kollam district. 

With this, the number of reported COVID-19 deaths in Kerala rose to 23.

Vasanthakumar  had returned to his ancestral house at Mukkom in Mayyanad on June 10 from New Delhi's Nizamuddin, a hot spot. No one was living in the house when he returned. His mother had gone to live with her youngest daughter.

Wild grass had crept all over the place and Kumar had employed a man to clean up the place. Mukkom East ward member Sheelaja N and an ASHA worker met him and took down his details, a routine precautionary exercise when someone comes into a panchayat from outside.

"He was alone in the house and so we asked him whether we should bring him food from the community kitchen. He said he would prepare his own food," Sheelaja said.  

He was an occasional visitor to his Mukkom house. "He came here during special events, like a marriage in the family or during Onam. His mother had been living in the house with his eldest sister. After the eldest sister's death, his mother went to live with her youngest daughter. Ever since, the house had been kept locked," Sheelaja said.

No one knows much about Vasanthakumar's family except that his wife and son are in Kozhikode.

His son's visit

On June 15, Sheelaja said she got a call from a local lad saying that Vasanthakumar was complaining of breathlessness and loose motion. "Through the ASHA worker we immediately contacted the Health people and they promptly sent an ambulance to take him for the test," Sheelaja said.

He was back in 45 minutes. The result declaring him positive came two days later, just after noon on June 17. When the local authorities and health officials went to Vasanthakumar's house, they saw his son standing outside. "He didn't look more than 25 and enquired about his father's condition. He said he had come from Kozhikode. We told him not to get too close to his father and that a vehicle will come to take his father to Paripally Medical College," Sheelaja said. By evening, Vasanthakumar was taken to the Medical College.

Vasanthakumar's condition is said to have deteriorated quickly and he was kept on a ventilator. He had developed acute pneumonia. Life saving drugs were transported on an emergency basis from the Medical College in Ernakulam but he could not be saved.

Since Vasanthakumar had observed strict quarantine, there is no public health scare in Mayyanad. "After the first two days he had called up an auto driver to bring him food. But he had also asked the auto driver to keep the food on top of the compound wall of his house," the ward member said.

Vasanthakumar had been suffering from pneumonia. He breathed his last at 9:55am on Tuesday following a cardiac arrest on Monday night, the health department said. Last rites will be held as per COVID protocol, it added.

COVID deaths in Kerala so far

Vasanthakumar (68, Mayyanad in Kollam), Sunil Padiyur (28, Blathur in Kannur), S Rameshan (67, Vanchiyoor, Thiruvananthapuram), Hussain (77, Irikkur, Kannur), P K Mohammed (70, Iritty, Kannur), Dinny Chacko (43, Chalakkudy, Thrissur), Kumaran (87, Engandiyoor, Thrissur), E Hamza Koy (61, Malappuram; former Santosh Trophy footballer), Shabnas (Edappal in Malappuram), Xavier (Kavanad, Kollam), Meenakshi Ammal (73, Palakkad), Father K G Varghese (77, Nalanchira, Thiruvananthapuram), Sulaikha (56, Kozhikode), Jose Joy (38, Pandanad, Chengannur), Joshy (68, Thiruvalla), Telangana native, Asiya (62, Kozhikode), Amina (52, Wayanad), Khadeejakkutty (73, Thrissur), Yakub Husain Sait (69, Ernakulam), Abdul Azeez (68, Thiruvananthapuram), Mehroof (67, Mahe, UT of Puducherry; died at Government Medical College in Pariyaram, Kannur) and four-month-old baby (Malappuram).

Note: Though Mehroof hailed from the Union Territory of Puducherry, his death has been included in Kerala's list based on a union government guideline, which stated that deaths should be accounted where it occurs irrespective of which state the person hailed from.