Two cops among 10 who got coronavirus from truck driver

Thiruvananthapuram: Ten more positive cases of Covid-19 were reported in the state on Wednesday, of which four had come from abroad and two from Chennai. The rest of the cases got infected through direct contact with Covid-19 patients. Till date 534 persons have been tested positive for Covid-19 and 41 persons are currently under treatment. The total number of active cases under treatment after coming from abroad has reached 15. Of the total active cases, 14 have come from other states while 12 got infected through direct contacts.
While Malappuram recorded three new cases on Wednesday, Palakkad and Wayanad had two each. Kottayam, Kannur and Kozhikode districts also recorded one case each. All the four people who got infected through direct contact received the disease from a truck driver in Wayanad. Of the four, two people are from Wayanad and the other two are policemen from Kannur and Malappuram who were on duty in Wayanad.
As many as 34,447 persons are placed under surveillance across the state. Till date 39,380 samples (including augmented samples) have been sent for testing and the results of 38,509 came as negative.
Meanwhile, the test result of one Covid-19 patient under treatment in Kollam has been declared negative. At present, Wayanad district has the most number of active cases - 11. The number of active cases in other districts is: Malappuram (6), Palakkad, Kannur and Kasaragod (4 each), Ernakulam (3), Kollam, Thrissur, Kottayam and Kozhikode (2 each) and Pathanamthitta (1).
Truck driver returned from Koyembedu market
The truck driver from Wayanad who had tested positive after his return from Koyembedu market in Tamil Nadu seems to have infected 10 persons with the virus. The 10 include two more members of his family who tested positive on Wednesday along with two policemen. The policemen were infected after they interacted with another positive case who had got the disease from a secondary contact of the truck driver.
The two policemen who have tested positive hail from Kannur and Malappuram and are attached to the Mananthavady police station. This is the first time police personnel have contracted Covid-19 while on duty. The two Covid- 19 positive cases reported from the district on Wednesday are the 26-year-old daughter and the grandchild of the truck driver. A total of six members of the family are under treatment at the Mananthavady district hospital.
Wayanad district police chief R Ilango said that the two policemen came into contact with the 20-year-old youth from Kammana in Mananthavady, who had tested positive on May 9, while registering a case against him for triple riding on April 18 and the youth had later visited the station twice. He contracted the disease from the truck cleaner’s son.
“The youth had come to the station on April 28 and again on May 2 to release the bike. Already 20 police personnel who were on duty on the day are under quarantine and all the other personnel at the station have been asked to go on quarantine,” Ilango said, adding that the building would be disinfected.
(With inputs from Kozhikode bureau)