Eighteen police personnel from Tirur in Kerala’s Malappuram district have been asked to go into quarantine after two accused, arrested in two separate cases, tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday.
The police said that the duo were arrested by a group of police officials, including a Sub-Inspector, and all of the officials were directed to go into quarantine.
The two accused have been admitted to the COVID-19 speciality hospital at Manjeri, they said.
Recently, some policemen, including a Circle Inspector, were placed in quarantine after a security guard of an apartment in Vellayil in Kozhikode, who committed suicide, tested positive.
The policemen were involved in preparing the mahasar and post-mortem reports of the suicide and hence had come in contact with the deceased.
Eleven residents of the flat tested positive for the virus. However, the health authorities are yet to trace the source of their infection.
On Monday, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that the source of infection for 41 peopel who tested positive, could not be traced as of June 30. Out of these, the source of infection for 18 patients were declared unknown.
The health department is still trying to trace the source of the remaining 23 people. It was the first time that the government announced the number of cases where the source of infection was unknown. However, they have not stated that there is community transmission.
CM Pinarayi said that the number of such cases where the source was unknown was still less than 1% of the total number.
On Monday, 193 people tested positive for coronavirus, taking the total number of active cases in the state to 2,252. Two deaths of COVID-19 patients were reported on Monday, increasing the state's death toll to 28.
The capital city of Thiruvananthapuram has been put under triple lockdown since Monday morning, following an increase in the number of people contracting the disease through contact with the infected persons.