As COVID-19 cases continue to surge, petition in Kerala HC seeks lockdown on counting day
KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Friday directed the state government to file a statement on a petition seeking to declare a lockdown from midnight on May 1 to midnight on May 2, which is the counting day of the Assembly elections in Kerala, given the exponential rise in daily Covid-19 cases.
The court suo motu impleaded the Election Commission in the case and served notice. The court adjourned the petition filed by High Court advocate Vinod Mathew Wilson till April 23.
Advocate R Sivadasan, counsel for the petitioner, pointed out that the hectic election campaign and the high-voltage rallies by leaders of national and local political parties have triggered another wave of Covid-19 in Kerala. Thus the state, which went to the polls on April 6, is seeing the number of infections rising steadily. The number of Covid cases is around 10,000 after the election. It was only around 2,000 cases before the election notification.
The Test Positivity Rate (TPR), which was a mere 2 per cent on March 1 and which continued to remain at below 4 per cent up till the middle of March, rose to 6.4 per cent on April 1. It went up to 12.5 per cent on April 12, and further to 14.80 per cent on April 16.
The rate of infection among health workers is also on the rise. Even if all precautionary measures are scrupulously implemented, they will not serve any practical purpose.
On the day of the declaration of election results, there will be a large gathering of people violating social distancing norms. The police will not be able to take any decisive action because of their dilemma of being accused of committing excesses on workers of any political party for fear of reprisals if the party concerned comes to power.
The inevitable outcome will be an extraordinary surge in the number of Covid patients within a few days, with the entire health machinery coming to a standstill. Hence, lockdown should be declared on counting day, argued the petitioner.