Fourteen health-care staff at the Government Medical College Hospital (MCH), Kozhikode, were asked to refrain from duty on Thursday, after a house surgeon and two more patients at non-COVID-19 wards tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.
According to sources at the MCH, the risk assessment of the health-care staff was being done to figure out how many of them would have to be put in quarantine. The patients belonged to nephrology and general medicine wards. A nurse was earlier tested positive at the nephrology ward and doctors and other staff were asked to go into quarantine.
Meanwhile, 67 fresh COVID-19 cases were reported in Kozhikode district, 56 of them through local transmission. Twenty-nine local transmission cases are from within Kozhikode corporation alone. Others are from Peruvayal, Villiappally, Chelannur, Thiruvalloor, Vanimel, Olavanna, Chorod, and Perumanna. District Collector S. Sambasiva Rao said at a meeting of political leaders and elected representatives that surveillance would be stepped up within the corporation limits in view of the rise in COVID-19 cases. Rapid response teams would step up their work in the coastal areas and awareness campaigns would be taken up there, he said. Right now, 20 wards within the corporation had been declared as containment zones, Mayor Thottathil Raveendran said. Mr. Rao pointed out that more restrictions would be imposed on markets, harbours, commercial areas as well as other public places.
Harbour closed
The Beypore fishing harbour has been closed for three days after the Health Department confirmed COVID-19 in one of the fishers from the area.
Meanwhile, the directive of the State government to stop wayside fish sale has been thrown to the wind in many locations. Many local merchants were found on either side of the Kozhikode-Kannur highway as usual. Some of them even claimed that they had the licence to carry out the trade.
