Kerala will go into a nine-day lockdown from Saturday in view of the continuing surge in Covid cases that could soon overwhelm the state’s health services.
The state government on Thursday declared a complete lockdown from May 8 to 16, allowing only essential and emergency services to continue.
Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan had earlier indicated that a complete lockdown would become inevitable if the situation worsened.
State government sources said the lockdown was the last resort to ensure the healthcare system didn’t get overloaded under the rising number of Covid cases that stood at almost 42,000 on Wednesday with 3.75 lakh patients under treatment, most of them in home isolation.
Although Vijayan had said the current situation with a positive rate of above 25 per cent was something that the state’s healthcare system could handle, he had warned that the system would come under pressure if the daily infection rate didn’t come down.
One of the few oxygen-surplus states, Kerala has been trying to ramp up the availability of the life-saving gas considering the possibility of higher demand in the coming weeks. Vijayan had on Wednesday written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking 1,000 metric tonnes (MT) of liquid medical oxygen, citing a rise in the overall projected requirement.
The chief minister had also requested for oxygen plants, concentrators and ventilators on priority, considering Kerala has one of the highest active caseloads in the country after Maharashtra and Karnataka.
Kerala had tried a mini-lockdown by largely restricting unnecessary movement of people apart from a total shutdown during weekends. The decision to switch to a complete lockdown was taken as none of these restrictions had the desired effect on reining in the Covid cases in the state.
Kerala Government Medical Officers’ Association had last week urged the government to announce a full lockdown for two weeks. The body had highlighted that mutant strains of the virus were getting transmitted quickly as people were allowed to move around.
Former finance minister Thomas Isaac told reporters that a complete lockdown was the only option as it won’t be prudent to put the healthcare system under pressure at this stage.
“It is difficult to abruptly increase the number of ICUs and ventilators although we have sufficient facilities at the moment. The number of deaths could increase if such facilities run short since a certain segment of the patients would need them,” he said.
Although the death rate remains low at 0.32 per cent, there has been a steady increase over the last few days. Fifty-eight Covid deaths were reported in the 24 hours until Wednesday evening. Added to the regular deaths, the rising Covid casualty has led to an unprecedented rush at crematoriums in Thiruvananthapuram. This has made the city corporation expedite work for an alternative facility in Kazhakkoottam, off the city, apart from the existing crematorium in Thycaud.
“Only the mechanical work is remaining for the new crematorium in Kazhakkoottam that was sanctioned during the previous corporation’s tenure. Once that work is done, we will overcome this situation,” mayor Arya Rajendran told reporters on Thursday.
The state has deployed additional services from places such as Bangalore to ferry those wanting to return home before the lockdown.
A statement issued by Kerala State Road Transport Corporation quoted its chairman and managing director Biju Prabhakar as saying that the additional services would operate from Thursday evening to Friday evening so that people wanting to return to their home state could do so before the lockdown kicked in on Saturday.
