Of the 16 persons who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 on Wednesday, nine acquired the infection through contact, while seven patients had arrived from outside the State.
Three close contacts of a 64-year-old Chellanam resident who was confirmed positive last week, also tested positive. Nine primary contacts of the Chellanam resident have tested positive totally in the past few days. As many as 64 persons from Chellanam have been tested so far.
A 43-year-old Maradu resident and two of his family members have also tested positive. He had been on the primary contact list of a staff member at the Naval Base who had tested positive earlier.
A family member of a 45-year-old from Mulavukad who was employed at a shop on T.D. Road has also tested positive.
Cases in Aluva
A 59-year-old vendor and a 64-year-old tea stall owner in Aluva who tested positive are residents of nearby Edathala and Kadungalloor panchayats respectively. The tea stall owner’s son had reportedly returned from abroad last month. As many as 114 swabs were collected from the Aluva market area on Wednesday after a headload worker tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 earlier.
The cardiac ward at the Ernakulam General Hospital (GH) was shut on Wednesday and 58 staff members quarantined after a patient in his 40s tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 on Tuesday.
The patient who was admitted to the ward with a cardiac problem for four days, was discharged and ready to go home on Tuesday when a call from the COVID control room informed the hospital authorities that he had been a primary contact of a 45-year-old employee at the T.D. Road shop who had tested positive on Monday. He was immediately tested and found to be positive.
Twenty-two patients admitted to the same ward and 17 patients in the ICU will remain in quarantine there, while the ward remains closed to new patients.
The general ward had been closed last week and eight patients and 76 staff members quarantined after a Chellanam resident who had been admitted to the ward tested positive.
Since most patients had raised concerns about not having other places to keep themselves quarantined, they will remain in the closed ward till they can be tested for the infection and discharged.
The number of patients seeking care at GH had increased exponentially, particularly for emergency care, after the Medical College Hospital at Kalamassery was turned into a COVID-care centre, sources said.
It was in this critical situation that 134 staff members, including doctors and nurses, have had to go into quarantine and two wards closed.
to protocol, patients admitted to the hospital are not tested for COVID-19 unless they are going in for a surgery, sources said, but a system of testing all patients admitted to the hospital might be necessary.
Unknown source
District Collector S. Suhas said a team would be placed in charge of tracing the source of infection in seven cases where it remains unknown.
Around 1,200 samples are being sent for testing daily, besides nearly 2,000 antibody tests and 70 antigen tests conducted at the Cochin Internationl Airport (CIAL). Antigen testing will soon be done in containment zones, and has begun at 12 hospitals in the district, he said.
When the number of patients at Adlux convention centre reaches 200, the first-line treatment centre at the CIAL convention centre, which is ready, will begin functioning. There are 130 patients at Adlux at present.
