Coronavirus Update- Green Zones In Kerala Becomes Red As COVID-19 Cases Increases

Kerala’s fight against Covid-19 is taking such abrupt turns that areas declared green zones are in a span of a day being declared red zones and strict lockdown protocol being enforced. Incidentally, the areas fall on the border with Tamil Nadu, where situation has been showing steady deterioration.

The Kottayam and Idukki districts, which have borders with Tamil Nadu, constituted the only two green zones in the state, when the rest of the districts were categorised into red and orange zones. But with people sneaking across through the porous border has led to a sudden spurt in cases, forcing the authorities to completely seal the affected areas.

Worsening the fears is the fact of the 8 persons testing positive within a week, it has not been possible to ascertain the source of infection even in one case, posing a big challenge to the state, which has otherwise achieved remarkable success in containing the infection.

There are at least 5 cases in Kottayam which have no clue how the affected people contracted the virus. Similarly, in 2 cases in the Regional Cancer Centre and another hospital in Thiruvananthapuram, the persons belong to Kottayam district.

Another worrisome factor is the steady rise in the proportion of new cases in relation to the number of people getting cured and released. Until now, the ratio favoured people testing negative, but suddenly new cases outnumbered those testing negative.

The rising instances of health workers contracting the disease despite all precautions and protective gear have the authorities worried as health workers come into contact with numerous people as part of their work.

At the same time, health minister KK Shailaja Teacher has ruled out the occurrence of third stage or community infection, saying the policy of containment has succeeded to prevent such eventuality.

A bigger challenge awaits the state when a large number of people stranded in highly contagious areas in Gulf countries. A majority of cases in the state were traced to people who had come from Dubai and other Gulf countries, apart from other affected European countries.

Pressure has been mounting on the state government for the evacuation of Keralites from the Gulf countries, but with all flights cancelled as part of the national lockdown, the government has been expressing its inability to do anything. The state government has been constantly in touch with the Centre, which is weighing options available to bring the affected persons.

An organisation dealing with the affairs of non-resident Keralites, namely NORKA, has opened registration for those who seek to come back and within two hours of the registration opening on its site, over 30,000 people have applied.

It is estimated that at least two lakh people are desperately waiting to come back as a large number of people employed in the Gulf countries have lost their jobs and are struggling without proper care or protection from the disease.

The state government claims it has made arrangements to quarantine a lakh of people coming from the Gulf countries and Indian states with a large concentration of Keralites. The government has hired buildings and other facilities to treat those who are affected with the disease of isolate as part of mandatory quarantining.