KOCHI: After the lockdown is over, the state government plans to quarantine the elderly and people with comorbidities who are at increased risk of
coronavirus infection. When the movement of people increases, the chances of spreading the disease are high and then protection of high-risk group will become the utmost important thing, experts are learnt to have given their suggestions to the government.
Kerala is now able to manage the Covid-19 preventive measures well, and rate of spread of the disease is not much. If this situation continues, the government may lift the lockdown, with certain restrictions though. It is widely expected that the Union government may ease the lockdown from April 15. There are some unconfirmed reports that the Union government may impose the lockdown once again after a week.
“As per our estimates, people from other states are going to come back to Kerala in large numbers. There may be a rush to Kerala from other states during April 15-19. As per the data we collected, a large number of booking has been made by Keralites living in other states during these days. There will be people who travel without booking. This has become the major hurdle we are going to face,” a source associated with preparation of the measures to be taken by the state post April 14 said.
“We are exploring the possibilities of checking the passengers at all the entry points of the state. Passengers in trains coming from other states should be checked at the entry points of the state,” the source said. “The possibility of keeping all those who return to Kerala from other places, after the lockdown, under quarantine is also being explored,” he said. “If they are allowed to easily mingle with the people who are already here, we will lose the advantageous position Kerala now enjoys due to stringent measures,” he said.
Meanwhile, the health department is in the process of preparing protocol for rapid tests and it will be limited to the highly-vulnerable groups such as health workers. “Rapid tests will be limited to highly-vulnerable people like health workers. The public perception that rapid test would help diagnose the disease at an early stage compared to that of polymerised chain reaction (PCR) tests is wrong. While PCR tests can diagnose whether a person has got the disease in the last two or three days of incubation period, it will take three or more days after incubation to get the result properly if we use rapid test,” an expert said. “So, the purpose of rapid tests is not early detection of disease. But, it is for detecting community spread, if any, and slow down the acceleration of spreading,” he said.
Elderly and people with comorbidity are to be given special attention post April 15. “They should keep indoors and follow all measures applicable for a person who is under quarantine. Others who go out shouldn’t come in direct touch with those who stay indoors,” he said.
Government has already asked experts in different spheres like health, transport and culture to give suggestions to chalk out a detailed plan on the basis of which activities post April15 are to be done.
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