Special intensified, stringent lockdown restrictions will be enforced in areas of Kerala, where the spread of COVID-19 is at critical-levels, the state government said on Sunday. The stringent lockdown restrictions would be in force in areas where the weekly infection population ratio (WIPR) is above 10 and the affected places would be notified by the District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) on a weekly basis, said an order from Chief Secretary VP Joy.
The order said the affected areas would be publicised through websites and other media. The District Collectors shall further notify micro-containment zones as per guidelines and enforce the lockdown restrictions therein, the order read. It said contact tracing and quarantine shall also be monitored and strengthened in all districts.
On Sunday, September 19, the state reported 19,653 fresh COVID-19 cases and 152 deaths, which took the caseload to 45.08 lakh and fatalities to 23,591 till date. The number of people who recovered from the infection since Saturday was 26,711 which brought the total recoveries to 43.10 lakh and the number of active cases to 1.73 lakh, an official press release said. As many as 1,13,295 samples were tested in the latest 24-hour period, the release said.
Of the 14 districts, Ernakulam recorded the highest with 2,810 cases followed by Thrissur (2,620), Thiruvananthapuram (2,105), Kozhikode (1,957), Palakkad (1,593), Kollam (1,392), Malappuram (1,387), Kottayam (1,288) and Alappuzha (1,270), it said. Of the new cases, 84 were health workers, 105 from outside the state and 18,657 infected through contact with the source of it not clear in 807 cases. There are currently 5.12 lakh people under surveillance in various districts, of whom 4.87 lakh are in home or institutional quarantine and 25,267 are in hospitals.