Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said on Friday that healthy financial support brings light to the minds of lakhs of workers and small traders.

Vijayan had been asked about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal to people to light candles and lamps on Sunday night to symbolise the journey from darkness to light while remaining silent on economic aid to those affected by the lockdown and details of how the government was battling the coronavirus outbreak.

“No one should have any opposition to spreading light. Usually it is good to spread some light,” Vijayan said. “The problem is that lakhs of people, like our workers, small-scale businesses, the tourism sector, restaurants, holiday resorts, lakhs of them, are in trouble and we should be able to spread light to them.”

“For that, good financial support is needed. Maybe it will follow as the Prime Minister might have thought let this (lighting candles and lamps) happen first,” Vijayan said, a mischievous smile playing on his lips.

Vijayan announced that nine new coronavirus cases had been reported in Kerala on Friday while 14 patients had been declared cured. Three of the new cases are people who had attended the Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi. Two others had earlier tested positive.

Kerala has reported a total of 295 Covid-19 cases so far, including 42 patients who have been discharged.

The country’s oldest couple to be cured of Covid-19 walked out of the government medical college in Kottayam on Friday. Thomas, 93, and his wife Mariamma, 88, had tested negative a few days ago but had been asked to stay at the hospital because of their advanced age.

They got infected when Thomas’s son and family came from Italy. Eleven people in the family had got infected after coming in contact with those who returned from Italy, triggering a scare at Ranni in Pathanamthitta. Now all of them are back home after being declared coronavirus-free.

Vijayan said the state was gearing up for rapid testing for which kits had started arriving.

The authorities in Dubai have closed for disinfection Naif, a residential locality from where many of those infected in Kerala, including badly affected Kasaragod, had returned.

Congress Lok Sabha member Shashi Tharoor has purchased 3,000 rapid-testing kits with his MPLAD funds. While 1,000 kits were flown to Thiruvananthapuram on Friday, the remaining kits will be delivered soon, Vijayan said.

The chief minister said that while results of regular tests take up to seven hours to come in, rapid testing results can be had in two and a half hours.

Vijayan said Tharoor would supply 250 flash thermometers and 9,000 personal protection equipment (PPE) kits for medical professionals attending to Covid-19 patients.