With 21 people testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 in the Lakshadweep archipelago, prohibitory orders against public gathering were clamped at Kavaratti on Tuesday.
Eight of the infected were islanders, two of them students. S. Asker Ali, district magistrate in the Union Territory of Lakshadweep, issued the orders against gathering of more than four persons in Kavaratti island in view of the sudden spike in the number of cases.
The first case in the archipelago was detected on January 18 when an Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) cook who reached the island by ship on January 4 tested positive for the virus.
A source in the island said all the eight islanders who tested positive were part of his (IRB cook) family. Since two students were found to be positive, their schoolmates would be tested .
The archipelago had been successful in keeping the virus at bay so far.
