Kerala Health Minister Veena George on Saturday, January 8 ruled out the possibility of another full lockdown in the state saying that another lockdown would severely impact the lives and livelihoods of the public. "We must take great care to prevent it. However, to curb the recent surge in COVID-19 cases, we will tighten restrictions and home isolation guidelines", she said, according to a report by OnManorama.
She further said that direction has been given to initiate full fledged services of COVID First Line Treatment Centres (FLTC) and the information concerned has been handed over to the district collectors and district health chiefs, reports Mathrubhumi.
The Union Government, on January 7, had announced that all international passengers flying into India will have to mandatorily undergo seven-day home quarantine after arrival, starting from January 11. The new set of travel guidelines was issued in view of rising COVID-19 cases in the country.
The minister said, on Friday, that in tune with the national guidelines, Kerala has decided to impose a week's compulsory home quarantine on all those arriving from abroad in view of the surging COVID-19 cases. She said that 280 Omicron cases have been registered in the state so far and that the maximum number of cases were reported from those arriving from low-risk countries.
"On the 8th day, they will undergo a RT-PCR test and if negative, they will continue in isolation for a week. The positive samples will be sent for genome sequencing," she said.
On Friday, 5,296 new COVID-19 cases were registered in the state.
(With inputs from IANS)