The Special Armed Police (SAP) camp in Thiruvananthapuram issued an alert after one of the police trainees housed in the camp tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Monday.
The police trainee was found to have COVID-19 during a random sampling conducted recently. Thirty other trainees, who had been camped in the same facility with the patient, are now being made to undergo quarantine.
According to an official with the police department, the issue is concerning as the patient was not in isolation. “The sampling was done five days back, but since it was a random sampling, everyone had been staying together. That has posed a small concern,” the official said.
A quarantine facility for the 30 members who were staying with the patient has been arranged inside the SAP camp itself, the official said.
The Kerala Police Chief Loknath Behera recently asked all the district police chiefs to find special quarantine facilities for police officials as they are more prone to contract the disease as a result of their frontline duty.
Thiruvananthapuram district had been grappling with a spike in local transmission of COVID-19 cases. Thiruvananthapuram is the only district where the state government has declared community transmission has occurred, in the coastal hamlets of Pulluvila and Poonthura.
The district also has the highest number of active cases, with 2,273 people under treatment.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday announced that the lockdown will be continued in Thiruvananthapuram, considering the rise in COVID-19 cases. CM Pinarayi Vijayan said that a committee has been formed to study the situation in the district and further action will be taken based on its recommendations.
Meanwhile, the state recorded 702 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, taking the total count of people under treatment to 9609. The state also reported two deaths on Monday. The total death count is now at 64.
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