THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the Covid-19 cases shooting up in the state, the government will implement a three-tier action plan to prevent ‘super spread’ in the cluster areas in the state. The government will deploy more health workers in the cluster zones where there is a spike in virus spread. “Stringent measures have been taken at the places where super spread is reported to prevent the spread to other areas. The testing at these places has been ramped up to identify the infected persons and to place the primary contacts in quarantine,” Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said at the media briefing on Friday.
As part of the action plan, special outpatient (OP) sections will be opened at the government hospitals for the treatment of persons who came from other states. Citing the increasing spread in cluster areas, Pinarayi pointed out that the infection rate in the Pulluvila cluster in the capital district is 42.92 per cent. However, the state can heave a sigh of relief as the recoveries reported were more than the positive cases on Friday. While 885 positive cases were reported, 968 persons recovered. It is the first time in the last three weeks that the number of recovered patients was higher than the positive cases. However, the increase in local transmission cases is still a matter of grave concern. On Friday, 724 of the new patients were infected through local transmission. Worryingly, the unknown sources of infection are also on the rise, as 56 such cases were reported.
In Ernakulam, more Covid First-Line Treatment Centres will be opened in the wake of cases reported at old age homes in the district. “The virus spread is high in the Aluva cluster and, hence, special measures have been taken,” Pinarayi said. “The country’s first Covid case was reported in Kerala. It is because of the right interventions and efforts of the health workers that helped reduce the mortality rate and prevent the spread in the first two phases of disease transmission. The situation in the third phase was expected. The state has succeeded in reducing the mortality rate to 0.31 per cent. We had flattened the curve earlier due to the hard work of health workers,” he added.
“Earlier, there were complaints that the state is too far behind in the number of testing. It is a wrong perception. Earlier, we used to conduct PCR tests at the National Institute of Virology in Alappuzha. Now, the testing is being done at 15 government and eight private labs, which is a proof of ramping up the number of tests. Earlier, the number of tests done was not more than 100. Now, it has been increased to 25,000 on a daily basis,” he said. The state government has taken steps to increase the number of CFLTCs and sought the support of private hospitals for the containment of disease spread if the situation goes out of control. The government has held discussions with 1,129 private hospitals in the state.