With average TPR touching 4 and the district moving towards a surge, the Health Department has launched an intensified one-month action plan to tackle the situation.
No compliance
Since there has been no protocol compliance during the last several days, the numbers of new COVID-19 cases are expected to shoot up within a week.
Panchayat presidents, secretaries and sectoral magistrates along with Health and Police officials will prepare the action plan for each panchayat in the district.
In the first week highly-exposed persons that include candidates, volunteers, micro-observers, schoolteachers and police officials will be tested.
In the second week focus will be on polling officers, booth agents and Kudumbashree, ASHA and health workers. In the third week public places including markets and harbours, migrant labourer settlements, work sites and old age homes will be visited.
Observations
“The action plan of second week will be based on the observations and analysis of the first.
Intensive contact tracing and detailed route map preparation will also be part of the plan.
Primary contacts of the positive cases will be recommended mandatory quarantine and random testing will be restarted,” said Deputy DMO Dr.R.Sandhya.
The Department will start 24-hour COVID-19 first-line treatment centres in all panchayats and awareness campaigns will be launched, sources said.
As part of the Healthy Kerala campaign special squads will visit public places and wedding venues to ensure that the protocol is followed.
“Containment zones will be under the strict monitoring of the Department. All private hospitals will be asked to make arrangements to admit COVID-19 patients,” she said.
Government Medical College Hospital and Kollam District Hospital, two COVID-19 hospitals in the district, will take measures to accommodate more positive cases if required.
Absentees
The Health officials have also asked all offices functioning in the district to inform the department about absentees and all hospitals in the district have been instructed to conduct fever surveillance and collect the samples of Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) cases.
Samples
“Samples of people coming from Europe, UK, Middle East, Nigeria and South Africa will be collected and sent for genotyping.
Along with all this, the vaccination drive will be continued,” she said.
