The district witnessed an increase in the number of local contact cases with 51 of the 75 cases reported on Monday belonging to that category.
There were 19 people from Cheruthoni (Vazhathoppe grama panchayat), 10 from Karimban, nine from Rajakumari, five from Rajakkad, and two each from Munnar and Puliyanmala, in the list of the COVID-19 positive cases.
So far, 318 people have recovered from the virus including the 25 on Monday. The number of those who tested positive and undergoing treatment at various hospitals rose to 310 on Monday. Those tested positive included 12 who returned from other States and seven from the Gulf countries. A 58-year-old woman from Mundakkayam in Kottayam district tested positive in Idukki on Monday. Vazhathoppe grama panchayat, where the Collectorate is situated, fell into the high risk area having the largest number of positive cases through local contacts on Monday.
Triple lockdown
The District Collector announced triple lockdown in ward number 10 of the Vazhathoppe for seven days from Tuesday.
The other wards of the grama panchayat would continue in the containment zone, said a release here. Though the district administration intensified monitoring of the porous routes across the border with Tamil Nadu, the cardamom plantation areas in the high range witnessed a steady flow of workers from there recently. With the harvesting of the cardamom crops about to begin, there was a fear that more workers from Tamil Nadu would likely come to the plantation areas to work. Management of plantations depended on thousands of workers who come daily to the plantation sector from Tamil Nadu for harvesting the crops.
Exempted
The wards of the following grama panchayats were exempted from the list of containment wards in the district: Chinnakanal (wards 3, 10), Ayyappancoil (wards 1,2,3), Upputhara (wards 1,5,7), Udumbanchola (wards 1,2,3), Kodikulam (wards 1,13), Bisonvalley (ward 8), Peerumade (ward 13), Senapathy (ward 9), Nedumkandam (wards 1,3) and Karunapuram (wards 1,2).
