Coronavirus: Kerala couple back from Saudi locked up

A total of 12,740 people are currently under observation in the state with 270 of them isolated in various hospitals.

Read | How a Kerala district brought nearly 900 people within surveillance net

Speaking to reporters after a review meeting on Monday, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said trade and commerce have come to a virtual standstill. “This is a grave situation. The vigil against the infection should continue but it should not hit social life,” he said.

Vijayan said all symptomatic passengers reaching Kerala airports should be directly shifted to isolation, while asymptomatic passengers should be taken to their houses for quarantine with police support. He added that all passengers should also inform the Health Department. At airports, all domestic as well as foreign passengers, including those flying abroad, would be subjected to screening, he added.

Even as people are quarantines, several stray incidents were reported from the state. In Thrissur, a doctor and his wife who recently returned from Saudi Arabia, were allegedly locked in their apartment by the apartment owners association. The police have registered a case against the association’s members, based on the doctor’s complaint.

In Kollam, a person placed under observation met with an accident after he went driving defying the direction to stay in isolation. However, he tested negative for Covid-19. I

At the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology in Thiruvananthapuram, 76 people, including doctors, have been put under home quarantine after a doctor at the hospital was tested positive on Sunday.