Two persons, a headload worker and a health-care worker, were tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in Kottayam on Thursday.
The headload worker, a 37-year-old, had come into contact with a truck driver from Tamil Nadu while unloading watermelon at a fruit shop in the Kottayam market on April 20. The driver, who is in isolation at the General Hospital in Palakkad, however, is yet to be confirmed positive for the virus infection and officials are awaiting his test results.
Meanwhile, seven persons who were examined after coming into contact with the truck driver have been tested negative for the infection.
The second person, a health worker in Thiruvananthapuram, had reached Kottayam on March 24 and was reported to be living at his home here. He developed symptoms of the disease on April 22 and was immediately subjected to a virology test.
Both the persons have been admitted to the corona isolation ward at the Government Medical College Hospital, Kottayam.
Further, efforts are on to trace the persons who had come into contact with these patients while the sample of the driver who had brought the health-care worker from Thiruvananthapuram to Kottayam has been sent for examination.
Market inspected
Following the development, a few wards of Kottayam municipality and Panachikkadu and Vijayapuram panchayats where the residences of the patients are located have been declared as hotspots.
Earlier in the day, a joint team of officials led by District Collector P.K. Sudheer Babu, District Police Chief G. Jaidev, and District Medical Officer Jacob Varghese inspected the Kottayam market. Directions have been issued to close down shops in the market and a disinfection drive will be carried out at the market on Friday. The fellow workers of the headload worker at the market too will be subjected to examination.
Orange zone
Meanwhile, the district has been reclassified as an Orange zone for the disease outbreak in view of the back-to-back cases over the past days. The reclassification, according to officials, would bring in necessary changes in the relaxation of lockdown restriction, officials said.