The Kerala government has decided not to introduce any new restrictions on civil life even though COVID-19 disease transmission is still rife in the State. At the same time, no relaxations are being allowed.
This means that the lockdown-like restrictions on Sundays will continue and all restrictions which are currently in place in districts which have been put in Category C (where COVID admissions constitute over 25% of the total hospital admissions) will also continue.
The decisions were taken at a COVID review meeting here on Monday. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who is in the UAE, joined the meeting online and chaired the session.
The review meeting pointed out that disease transmission in the capital district has begun to ease. However, for the time being, the district will remain under Category C
There will be no night curfew. The restrictions in Category C districts – closure of cinemas, swimming pools and gymnasiums – will continue as such.
The meeting took the decision that the quantum of random samples sent for genomic analysis may be reduced as it has already been well established that Omicron is in wide circulation in the community. However, genomic surveillance studies will have to be continued to detect the arrival or emergence of any new virus variants. Hence, 2% of the samples from international travellers (it used to be 20% earlier) will continue to be sent for genomic surveillance.
It was noted at the review that even though disease transmission was intense and the number of daily cases remained at a high, there was no situation wherein hospitals were overflowing . The number of patients developing serious disease was also low.
Experts in the review meeting expressed hope that the cases will begin to show a dclin9ing trend from next week and that by the third week of February, a near-normal situation may be expected.
