Kerala to reopen worship centres, malls even as COVID-19 cases shooting up

Even as the COVID-19 graph of Kerala is shooting up with a highest ever single day spike of 111 more fresh positive cases being reported on Friday, the state is going ahead with reopening many sectors like worship centres, restaurants and malls from June 8 in accordance with centre's unlocking norms.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that since it would take quite sometime for COVID-19 threat to be over, it was not practical to continue with the lockdown indefinitely. The people need to take precautions to prevent infection. The government would go by centre's directives on opening worship centres, including Sabarimala Ayyappa temple. Strict regulations will be put in place in number of persons depending on size of the worship centre.

The state will conduct anti-body tests in large scale in the coming days to check community spread in view of the spike. Among the 111 cases reported on Friday, 50 persons returned from abroad and 48 from other states. Ten persons got infected through local contact.

As many as 22 more people recovered from the infection by Friday. Palakkad district that shares borders with Tamilnadu is now witnessing an alarming situation with 40 more testing positive on Friday, taking the number of active cases in the district to over 180.