The night curfew and Sunday lockdown in Kerala have been withdrawn in response to recommendations from a brainstorming session involving national and international experts held online last week, followed by consultations with representatives of the local self-government institutions held here.
Covid death toll
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan announced this here on Tuesday when the Covid test positivity ratio (TPR) touched a new low of 15.87 per cent, though the number of daily new cases went up to 25,572 on an enhanced sample base of 1,62,425. Deaths came in at 189 and cumulatively at 21,820.
Medical colleges to open
Higher education institutions such as medical colleges, technical institutes and polytechnics, will open on a bio-bubble model from October 4 in the first of a series of measures proposed in the education sector. Only teachers and students who have taken at least one dose of the vaccine can attend. Classes will be open only for final year students of the graduate and post-graduate courses in medical and technical institutes.
The CM has asked the entire teaching community in the State across the primary, secondary and higher streams to complete vaccination this week itself.
The General Education and Higher Education Departments have been directed to coordinate the vaccination schedule for teachers. Students who have not had the first dose yet and those who are due for the second dose would be accorded priority in the vaccination programme.
The CM also declared that the State has administered three crore doses of the Covid vaccine. Of these, more than two crore (2,18,54,153) are first doses and 82,46,562 second doses. The 10 lakh doses that reached the State on Monday night will help resume the inoculation drive. In the age group of 18-plus, vaccination coverage was 76.15 per cent for the first dose and 28.73 per cent for the second. dose. In the age group of 45-plus, more than 92 per cent has received the first dose and 48 per cent the second dose. Of the active case pool of 2,37,045 on Tuesday, the percentage of those hospitalised is 13.30 per cent, and more or less stabilised at that level, said the Chief Minister said.
In the Nipah virus-hit Kohikode, samples of 10 of the high-risk contacts of the deceased have proved negative. Eight of the results came late on Monday night from National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, and two from the testing facility it helped set up at the Government Medical College, Kozhikode.
The contact list now features 257 persons, of which, 141 are healthcare workers of the four hospitals that the patient was taken to. Of the 257 on the list, 51 are admitted at the Medical College Hospital. No one has any serious complications. The 10 negative results have come in as a big relief, said Vijayan.