The State government on Wednesday braced itself to receive non-resident Keralites returning home from COVID-19-hit countries in the Gulf. Two flights are likely to land in Kochi and Kozhikode from Abu Dhabi and Dubai respectively on Thursday.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the State is on high alert and has geared itself up to receive them. Officers in the rank of Deputy Inspector General of Police would monitor the disembarkation process at airports. They would transfer the arrivals into mandatory institutional quarantine for seven days. Pregnant women and children have been exempted from the regulation. The police would escort them to home in designated vans and make sure they go into safe isolation.
The police would not allow any person to receive or welcome the returnees. Mr. Vijayan requested the media to refrain from interviewing Non-Resident Keralites (NoRKs) on their arrival.
Thousands will trickle into the State steadily as air and sea travel picks up. Many in the U.S., U.K. and Europe are awaiting return. The State is attempting to walk a tight rope between restoring normality and enforcing containment measures.
Mr. Vijayan advised Keralites to take necessary precautions on flight. He requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to despatch medical teams to the Gulf to examine inbound citizens for COVID-19 symptoms at their ports of departure.
Mr. Vijayan said an estimated 6,000 Keralites had entered the State through land borders. Most were from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra, which had relatively high COVID-19 caseload. The State has nudged them into mandatory quarantine in State-run facilities. An estimated two lakh have applied for return to Kerala on the NoRKA website. The government has issued an approximate 38,000 person entry passes. It was processing 31,000 applications.
Mr Vijayan said the long queues of vehicles and tight lines of people at the Walayar check-post in Palakkad were causes for concern. Kerala has requested Karnataka to allow vehicles into Kerala through Nadukani Churam so that people travelling to Malappuram could avoid a needless 150 km detour.