Govt treads cautiously, IPR may replace TPR as criterion

Thiruvananthapuram: The Covid-19 restrictions to be imposed in a panchayat or municipality/corporation ward are likely to be based on a weekly infection population ratio (IPR) rather than the test positivity ratio (TPR) hereafter. A meeting chaired by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan here on Tuesday is learnt to have decided to review the methodology used to enforce the restrictions.
The weekly IPR is calculated by multiplying the Covid-19 infections reported in the week with 1,000 and dividing it with the population of the panchayat or the urban ward. Any panchayat/ward with weekly IPR more than five will need special attention and moderate restrictions while there will be total lockdown if the figure is more than 10. Based on last week's data, there are 181 local self-government institutions in the state that need moderate restrictions and eight LSGs warranting total lockdown.
The meeting is also learnt to have redefined a micro containment zone as an area that can be lesser than the area of a local body ward wherein the Covid spread potential is high due to clustering of positive cases. It could be streets, markets, harbours, shopping malls, residential areas, MSME units, offices, apartment complexes, joint family houses with over 10 members, warehouses, workshops and auction centres.
Any micro area with more than five positive cases on a given day in a given location will be defined as a cluster. While notifying a street (every 100 m) as micro containment zone, the business units and residences on either side of the street will be made part of the containment without restricting it to one side of the street alone. The area will remain a micro-containment zone for seven days once it is declared by the district disaster management authority.
The meeting is also learnt to have decided to impose total lockdown across the state only on Sundays, leaving all other days for shops and commercial establishments to function except shopping malls and theatres. While the coming Sunday (August 8) will be the day of total lockdown, there will not be any lockdown on August 15 and 22 in view of Independence Day and Onam. However, no public functions or meetings will be permitted on these days, it is learnt.
Though shops and establishments will be permitted to function, it will be the responsibility of business establishments to ensure that their customers are either vaccinated against Covid, have been infected earlier (have developed antibodies) or have a valid RTPCR-negative certificate. For hotels and resorts in micro-containment zones, police will be asked not to enforce restrictions on customers residing in them so that domestic tourism is not adversely affected.
The government has also appointed senior IAS officers for the enforcement, containment and related activities in all districts. They are Saurabh Jain (Kasargod), Biju Prabhakar (Kannur), Rajesh Kumar Sinha (Wayanad), Sanjay Kaul (Kozhikode), Anand Singh (Malappuram), K Biju (Palakkad), APM Mohammed Hanish (Thrissur), K R Jyothilal (Ernakulam), Raju Narayanaswamy (Idukki), P M Ali Asgar Pasha (Kottayam), Sharmila Mary Joseph (Alappuzha), Rani George (Pathanamthitta), Tinku Biswal (Kollam) and Mini Antony (Thiruvananthapuram).