THIRUVANTHAPURAM: With Covid cases declining in the state, the Kerala government on Wednesday issued an order revoking the work-from-home option extended to certain categories of people working in government and private sectors.
The work-from-home option was given to pregnant employees and women employees with children below two years, employees with children suffering from physical and mental challenges such as autism and cerebral palsy, cancer patients and severely sick employees. The government had issued separate orders to expand the category of employees who can avail the work-from-home arrangement from the second week of January.
An officer of the Disaster Management Department said the new order revoking the work-from-home arrangement was issued to bring clarity to both employers and employees.
The government had taken a different approach to deal with the third wave.
During the first two waves, the work-from-home option was given to most of the employees. But it chose to be selective during the third wave even when government employees' organisations demanded that the option be extended to all lower-grade employees. In the third week of January, the government also decided against giving seven-day special casual leave for employees coming in the primary contact list.
The state reported 12,223 new Covid cases on Wednesday. The weekly infection rates have seen a consistent decline from the fourth week of January. According to the health department, the peak of the third wave was on January 25 when the daily cases touched 55,475.
During February 9-February 15, the average active cases were 1,86,638. Out of them, an average of 0.9 percent only were admitted in oxygen beds and 0.5 percent were in ICU. Out of the total 1,13,798 cases, only 4.5 percent of the active cases are admitted in hospitals.