Alarming, Kerala says as two on expat flights test positive

Vande Bharat Mission: A pregnant woman with her child at Kochi airport after being repatriated from Abu Dhabi on a special flight on Thursday (Source: Department of Public Relations, Kerala Gov)

Three days after the exercise to bring expatriates home stranded abroad, two people from Kerala, who were among the first evacuees from the Middle East, tested positive for Covid-19.

Of the two people who tested positive, one, 24, was on the flight from Abu Dhabi to Kochi on Thursday night, while the other, 39, had landed in Kozhikode from Dubai the same night. . There were 181 passengers (including four children) on the flight from Abu Dhabi, while the flight from Dubai had 181 (including five children).

Announcing the two new cases at his daily press conference, Prime Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said it was “alarming” that they tested positive as soon as they landed, showing that they were infected before arriving in the state.

Saying that the new cases indicate that the state is not safe simply by controlling the spread of the infection within its borders, the CM said: “We need to strengthen our mitigation efforts and preventive measures.”

More than 4.13 lakh people from Kerala have registered with the state government to be transported to their homes as part of the Center’s evacuation plan entitled “Mission Vande Bharat”. Prime Minister Vijayan had said earlier this week that he had written to the Prime Minister, saying it was “risky” to bring the stranded Indians back without testing them. While the CM had requested mandatory testing for those who were transferred back, there is currently no such testing.

Malappuram District collector Jafar Malik said the people who tested positive came out of the district. While the 39-year-old man has been admitted to Kozhikode Medical College, the 24-year-old man has undergone treatment at Medical Medical College Hospital in Kochi. The 39-year-old man has underlying medical conditions and had attempted to be transferred back for treatment. Upon arrival at Kozhikode airport, he was transferred to medical school and his samples were sent for analysis on Friday morning.

The district fundraiser said the 24-year-old, who landed in Kochi, had suffered a fever for a week. On Thursday night, he was taken from the airport to the isolation unit of the Medical College Hospital in Kochi.

Health department officials said everyone who traveled with the two was quarantined in institutions or in their homes. A special alert was issued to monitor the health of passengers who were on the two flights. Although all have been advised to undergo a mandatory 14-day institutional quarantine, Kerala has allowed unwell pregnant women and children under the age of ten to go into home quarantine.

Kerala has so far reported 505 cases of Covid, of which only 17 are under treatment. Most of those who tested positive in the state had a history of international travel.

In addition to those arriving from other countries, Cora’s Kerala containment plan will need to take into account those traveling to Kerala from other states. Since last Monday, when the third phase of the blockade took effect, Kerala has been issuing entry passes to its stranded inhabitants in other parts of the country. As on Friday, 86,679 people had requested these passes, of which 43.71 percent were from red-light districts in the country.

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