Three more persons who had returned to Kottayam from Gulf countries tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, taking the number of patients in the district to six. Two persons had come from Dubai while the third person had landed from Kuwait. All three had been undergoing institutional quarantine at a centre near Kothanallur and had not developed any symptoms of the viral infection.
“The first patient is a 31-year-old woman from Neendoor who was a fellow passenger of a 29-year-old woman patient from Uzhavoor on a Kochi flight from Kuwait on May 9. The other two are an 83-year-old woman from Manganam who had gone to Dubai to visit her family and a 42-year-old man from Thrikkodithanam. A Pathanamthitta native who had travelled by the same flight from Dubai on May 11 had earlier tested positive,” said an official.
Quarantine ends
These latest cases came even as the first batch of returnees from the Gulf completed their mandatory quarantine of 14 days. Twenty persons reached Kottayam from Abu Dhabi and Dubai on May 7. Of the 18 persons who had arrived from Abu Dhabi, one person tested positive.
Besides the six patients from the district, a 40-year-old man from Parassala in Thiruvananthapuram who had returned from Mumbai by road is being treated at the General Hospital in Kottayam.
Meanwhile, a two-year-old boy who was undergoing treatment at the Government Medical College here for COVID-19 tested negative. The child has now tested negative two consecutive times. The child and his mother — the Uzhavoor native who landed from Kuwait — were in home quarantine when both tested positive.
Even as the the region witnessed a spurt in cases, Kottayam continued its return towards normalcy on Thursday with private buses too resuming operations, albeit partially. Around 150 of the over 1,000 private buses in the district carried out operations during the day even as the passenger response remained lukewarm.
