A marathon mission to trace contacts of the Italian tourist

Thiruvananthapuram: The medical team, which embarked on the task of tracing places where the Italian tourist frequented before he was tested positive for Corona, had to circumvent the hurdles posed by the longest window of exposure recorded among the recently confirmed Covid-19 cases.
By Sunday evening, over 100 contacts were traced of which less than 50 were categorized as ‘high-risk’; which means persons who got in close contact with the patient within a distance of one metre. The time-space matrix on a daily basis, which was easily prepared for other two cases , could not be done accurately in this case simply because data had to be collected over a period of more than two weeks.
A marathon mission by another team, which spanned over six hours on Saturday night, helped track down 117 passengers who travelled with him in the domestic flight from Delhi to Thiruvananthapuram on February 27.
The team, which received the contact numbers of the passengers, were able to establish contact with more than 80 persons. All of them were advised to go on quarantine. However, as for 36 contacts, the number was either wrong or remained out of coverage area. The team is now in the process of tracking down these contacts as soon as possible.
The prolonged period of exposure and his stay at Varkala posed numerous challenges in tracking. The team learnt that he visited multiple places; for instance during his stay he would have lunch, breakfast and dinner from different places. Being a regular, he visited friends’ places more than once in a single day. A narrow lane that runs from the resort he had stayed comprised many small shops and it was run mostly by non-Keralites. He was friends with all of them and he had spent time chatting at these shops since his arrival on February 27.
The team could come across only two-three CCTV footages. However, even the length of footages over an extended period of time threw up another challenge. There was a money exchange centre he had been to but with no entry recorded on register. Chances were slim to pinpoint the exact time at which he visited the centre. Over 30 interviews were done by the team on Saturday and while some claimed that the Italian was cautious enough not to shake hands with them, the health team has not bought it completely because the officials suspect that they could be saying that to avoid being put on quarantine.
In one case the team took a screenshot from a footage, took a print and showed it to the foreigner to confirm whether he had visited that place, however he said that he was not the person in the picture. The team, which came up with a route map on Sunday, is now finalizing the list of secondary contacts as a precautionary measure. If one of the persons in high-risk primary contacts is tested positive in the coming days, precaution can be taken for all those in the secondary contact list.
Tourism minister Kadakampally Surendran will hold a high-level meeting in Varkala on Monday.