Ensuring institutional quarantine for people arriving from red zone areas in other States has become a daunting task for the district administration and the Health Department.
While expatriates are transported directly from airports to various isolation centres, officials are still struggling to trace those who came from red zone areas via road, because of the absence of a centralised system.
Though real time data of people from red zones are made available to the district authorities from the border check-posts, many of the returnees are not reporting at the designated isolation centres.“Several people entering the State are not reporting to isolation centres, rendering the institutional quarantine system futile,” said a Health Department official. As many as 884 Kottayam natives, including 434 from red zones, entered the State through various check-posts till Saturday afternoon. Of these, only 170 persons have reported at the isolation centres so far.
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30 students from T.N.
Efforts are now on at the grassroots-level to locate the missing persons, including about 30 students from Thiruvallur district in Tamil Nadu, with the help of the local police.