(Representational Image)  |  Photo Credit: PTI
Key Highlights
- 1, 07,164 people are currently under observation in the state. Out of this, 1, 04,730 people are under home/institutional quarantine and 2,434 people are in hospitals.
- The state health department faces a shortage of manpower and various government organizations are demanding to assign more doctors for duty.
- A total of 35 Covid deaths are confirmed on January 7th.
Thiruvananthapuram: Following an upswing in the number of Covid-19 and Omicron cases in the state, the Kerala health department has decided to mandate 7-day home quarantine for all international passengers.
The seven-day quarantine will be followed by an RT-PCR test on the eighth day. If the person turns negative, a seven-day self-monitoring will follow.
The move comes after the state reported 5296 Covid positive cases with 305 Omicron cases reported altogether, wherein a majority of them have been detected from those who arrived from foreign countries.
According to health minister Veena George, the decision to prevent the spread of Omicron was based on the guidelines of the Central government. Earlier the seven-day home quarantine was limited only for passengers coming from countries listed as ‘high risk’. However, it has now been mandated for all after more Omicron variant cases are been reported.
Of the 280 Omicron cases detected in the state, 186 came from other countries compared to 64 from high-risk countries.
The state has started screening international passengers based on the Centre’s guidelines from November 30. People coming from high-risk countries are tested on arrival. The central guidelines were subject to two per cent of passengers coming from other countries on a random basis. As the number of people who tested positive for Omicron increased among travellers from other countries, the state decided to conduct the Covid test on 20 per cent of the passengers.
Meanwhile, as part of Covid third wave preparedness, health department has decided to start home care management training for health workers. According to health minister Veena George, home care is better suited to deal with the rising number of Covid cases. It is meant for infected people who do not require treatment in a hospital.
“People experience cold, fever, cough and body pain due to weather changes. These symptoms are similar to those of Covid. So it is necessary to conduct Covid test to ensure that the symptoms are not due to Covid,” the health minister said.
However, a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has decided not to implement night curfew and weekend curfew as the government is of the view that the cases are still under control and stringent measures will be implemented only if there is a widespread surge in Covid cases.