COVID-19 cases showed a spurt in the district after a lull of two days as 222 people tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 on Tuesday.
The increase in daily count comes after the district witnessed 175 and 161 cases in the last two days respectively. The district’s 12th COVID-19 death was also officially recorded after a 65-year-old woman succumbed to the disease.
As many as 199 people contracted the infection through contact transmission. Nineteen health workers are among those who have been infected, and 88 employees of various firms in the KINFRA International Apparel Park at Menamkulam have been diagnosed with the disease.
They were among 298 people who were subjected to rapid antigen detection tests on Tuesday after a worker tested positive a day ago. The infected people include head load workers of the godowns of Kerala Medical Services Corporation and the Food Corporation of India.
Two police officers have been diagnosed with the disease. A Neyyattinkara native, who was deputed for guard duty at the Secretariat, and a Parassala-native civil police officer, attached to the Police Training College, are those infected.
A Circle Inspector and a Sub-inspector attached to the Kilimanoor police station are among 13 people who have been quarantined, a day after an accused in a chain-snatching case tested positive. Nine personnel of the Kerala Fire and Rescue Services including six in the Chengalchoola fire station and three in the Poovar fire station also contracted the infection.
Health workers
One more doctor in Chest Diseases Hospital at Pulayanarkotta tested positive. A patient was also diagnosed with the disease.
The number of infected health workers in the Government Fort Taluk Hospital went up to six after a nurse was diagnosed with COVID-19.
The hospital is one of the two institutions treating COVID-19-infected pregnant patients. While a nurse who shared a room with the infected nurse in a hostel at Perunthanni was sent to an institutional quarantine centre, six others including the nursing superintendent have gone into home quarantine. A section of the staff had earlier alleged that the employees, who figured in the primary contact list of infected workers, were made to work without undergoing quarantine.
Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran went into self-quarantine after a worker in his official house tested positive.
