Kasargod district, the biggest hotspot of the pandemic in the State, seems to be turning it around quite significantly going by the figures.
Compared to a quantum jump from 34 positive cases to 106 cases in the last week of March, only 50 cases have been reported in the first nine days of this month, said Inspector General Vijay Sakhare, Special Officer, COVID-19 prevention, Kasaragod.
“This means that from a geometric progression of 3.12 it has now more than halved to 1.46 and the numbers are declining fast. It may stabilise at around 170-180 cases from the existing 156 by the end of the original lockdown period on April 14. Had it continued at the earlier pace we would have been looking at more than 3,000 cases by April 21,” said Mr. Sakhare. He said Kasaragod seems on course of a turnaround under the able leadership of the Chief Minister and should be hailed as a model worthy of emulating in the rest of the country.
Police measures
“We created seven CCZs after a Geographic Information System showed that all the COVID-19 positive cases in the district were confined to seven clusters and cut them off completely from the rest of the district. This proved critical in containing the virus,” he said.
Police deployed drones to spruce up the surveillance and arrested several people found breaking the lockdown. Even their family members were threatened of legal action.
Police also launched a WhatsApp-based door-delivery service to reduce social interaction.
Special teams armed with informative videos made daily visits to 20,000-odd people comprising foreign returnees and home quarantined people and their primary and secondary contacts who could potentially spread the infection
The introduction of the Covid Safety App, which helped quarantined persons in getting medical and other assistance, also helped police in enforcing quarantine norms.
Capacity enhancement to deal with any exponential rise in cases was another focal point as over 1,000 private hospital rooms and over 2,000 hotel, hostel and lodge rooms and maximum number of oxygen cylinders were arranged. Besides, private practitioners and nurses were roped in.
