On August 7, the day Kerala woke up to the news of a horrifying landslide burying several lives under rubble, Idukki had less than 300 active cases of COVID-19. It was on the previous night that the unexpected landslide occurred in the Pettimudi Hills of Idukki, killing at least 70 people, out of which bodies of 63 adults and children have been found so far. The next morning a number of rescue personnel reached – from the fire force and volunteer networks. They had to work closely wearing protective suits. But even through the weeks of rescue operations that followed, Idukki has still been able to keep its COVID-19 numbers relatively low, compared to the rest of the state.
As of September 1 morning, there are 268 active cases in Idukki while the state has reported 22,512. Idukki, therefore accounts for only 1.2% of the COVID-19 cases in Kerala presently. Pre and post landslide, the district has more or less consistently kept the numbers low. The maximum it has reported on a single day is 70, on July 27.
“What helped us was the experience we had in dealing with a case very early, when a foreigner in Munnar tested positive for the coronavirus. This was on March 15,” says Devikulam sub collector Prem Krishnan.
Back in March, a British tourist had escaped quarantine from a resort in Munnar at a time early cases of the coronavirus were being detected. After the first three cases in January, a month had passed without incident. A lot of interest was therefore on the few cases cropping up in parts of the state. The tourist and his group of 18 people were offloaded from an Emirates flight they had boarded and brought back to quarantine.
“But that incident helped in creating a standard operating procedure, including the multiple levels of contact tracing you do (primary, secondary, tertiary), isolation, testing on priority basis, the shutting down of crowded areas as markets and so on. A crowd control module was implemented. The stakeholders – merchant associations, politicians and all – were involved in it. At the Kumili check post, the entire administration machinery was there. Proper health screening was done and the contact details were taken by panchayat and revenue which made the tracing easier. We also had awareness campaigns with regular announcements, a revenue-led squad that accompanied police to keep protocol violations – like not wearing masks – in check,” Prem Krishnan says.
Special squad
When the landslide took place, everyone who came for the rescue work was given antigen tests. “One fire force personnel had tested positive on the second day and we sent the entire team that came with that person back. We took all of their contacts too. When the disaster took place, it was not just the rescue workers who came but visitors who wanted to see the site. We had immediately banned the entry of visitors. Only rescue workers and volunteers and those from the government machinery were allowed,” Prem Krishnan says.
Among the media persons who covered the event, one person tested positive. The entire team was isolated for 14 days.
All the other rescue workers from National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the fire force tested negative for antigens. But if they showed any symptoms they were also given RT-PCR tests.
Dr Sujith Sukumaran, district program manager of the National Health Mission, has been at the site of the landslide since Friday, August 7. There was no action plan for COVID-19 during a disaster since no one was expecting it, especially at Rajakkad where the landslide occurred. But they made an immediate strategy, on the lines of the one that had worked so long for the district.
“From the beginning we followed the strategy of early isolation and quarantine of isolated people. This meant that we identify those who are likely to get positive earlier on and put them in quarantine. Robust surveillance was the key factor. For example, when the state to state travel restrictions were revoked, we had an influx of travellers. But they would register on the state’s COVID-19 Jagrata portal and the Collectorate kept the full list of people coming to the district. We’d scrutinise this list and identify who will come to the vulnerable areas,” says Dr Sujith.
Screening at check-posts
They also trained and entrusted field workers to check that people followed quarantine. Bilingual stickers in Tamil and Malayalam were stuck on shops for people to understand the message, since Idukki shares a border with Tamil Nadu. A mobile force was hired to report those violating the protocol in vulnerable areas, especially ‘trespassing areas’ where people could simply walk into the district.
“In Pettimudi and Edamalakudi we went into an advance lockdown, seeing a second surge in cases in the state. In Edamalakudi, we pooled resources and put a lockdown so that people were not allowed to go in to or out of the place, except for Taluk supply,” Dr Sujith says.
When the landslide occurred, the same strictness was followed. In place of mobile forces, there was police there to ensure that random visitors didn’t trespass the area. There was also a lot of testing. About 350 to 400 tests were done in five days in just the landslide area.
Watch: Kerala man's homage to Pettimudi landslide victims