The Kerala government on Wednesday, February 16, decided to revoke the work from home-related relaxations or concessions granted to certain categories of employees in the government and private establishments in the wake of the surge in COVID-19 cases. The order, issued by the Disaster Management Department, said the concessions granted via earlier orders of January 14, 20 and 24 were being revoked. The new order ended the work from home facility for all state and private sector employees and from now on, all of them will have to report for work at their respective offices.
The government had, by way of the earlier orders, decided to provide relief to pregnant government staff by making available to them work-from-home facilities. Also, it had decided to allow working women with children below the age of two, cancer patients and seriously-ill persons to work from home.
As more and more COVID-19 restrictions in Kerala continue to be lifted, the state on Wednesday saw 12,223 more people test positive while the positivity rate was 15.75%, state Health Minister Veena George said in a statement. George's statement also said that 21,906 recoveries were recorded and active cases stood at 1.13 lakh of which 4.5% patients were being treated at various hospitals. The latest 24-hour period also saw 25 COVID-19 deaths, taking the total death toll to 63,109.
Among the 14 districts, Ernakulam recorded the highest with 2,944 cases, followed by Thiruvananthapuram with 1,562 and Kottayam with 1,062. Of the new cases, 88 were health workers, 33 from outside the state and 11,046 infected through contact with the source of it not being clear in 1,056.
Meanwhile, in another development, state Education Minister V.Sivankutty announced that schools in Kerala will go offline from February 21.