The district once again recorded a surge in caseload with a total of 907 persons testing positive for SARS-C0V-2 on Tuesday.
Among the patients are 862 contact cases, 26 persons with no known source, 16 health workers, two NRIs, and one person who had travelled from another State. While Kollam Corporation reported over 250 cases, Kottankara, Anchal, Alappad, Karungappally and Thevalakkara are also among the places with several new patients.
The health workers who tested positive include eight Thekkumbhagam residents, four persons from Thevalakkara, and three others from Yeroor, Neendakara and Sasthamcotta. The district currently has 19,643 persons under observation and the total number of samples collected is 2,64,719. While 1,892 persons completed home quarantine on Tuesday, the Health Department has traced 57,674 primary and 7,188 secondary contacts of the positive cases. The number of recoveries on Tuesday is 410 and Kollam currently has 7,981 active cases.
Following the spike in cases, Minister J. Mercykutty Amma has instructed the officials concerned to deploy three volunteers in each ward to strengthen preventive measures. Each panchayat will find volunteers for the purpose and all those who can’t maintain physical distancing norms and home isolation will be shifted special centres. Volunteers will be monitoring the patients shifted to the centres due to the lack of home care facilities and local bodies will ensure that they are provided medicine, food and tele consultation. The Minister also instructed the district administration not to close any FLTCs currently operating in Kollam.
Since shop owners, merchants and autorickshaw drivers are increasingly contracting the infection, special groups will be formed for them as part of containment. “Sector officers and ward-level committees should monitor the groups and if necessary, doctors should be assigned at panchayat level. Sector officers should be given the responsibility of keeping a tab on ward-level activities and volunteers,” she said. The Minister also urged the public to cooperate with the officials and ensured that more FLTCs will be opened in panchayats that report high number of cases. “Joint efforts of people’s representatives, volunteers, and sector officers will help us to enforce containment activities in a more efficient manner and prevent further spread,” she said.
