While the government has been struggling hard to ensure quarantine and social distancing norms to curb the local spread of Covid-19, the people of a remote tribal village in Kerala has decided to self impose lockdown to keep novel coronavirus at bay.
Edamalakkudy, the first tribal panchayat in Kerala, situated in the forest areas of Idukki district, have self-imposed quarantine by preventing the entry of outsiders. The decision was taken by the 'Oorukoottam', local tribal assembly of the people.
Secretary of the Edamalakkudy Panchayat, Varghese, said that it was owing to the high alertness of the people of the tribal hamlets that not even one Covid-19 case was reported so far.
Situated about 35 kilometres from Munnar, a known tourist destination, there is not even motorable road for around 15 kilometres into Edamalakkudy. It has a population of around 3,000 in 28 settlements. The panchayat has an area over 100 square kilometres and it shares borders with Tamil Nadu.
Anticipating the risk of the spread of Covid-19 in the locality and the minimum health care facilities available, the local tribal assembly decided to impose lockdown in the region. Any one going out of the panchayat area would have to remain in two-week quarantine on return. No outsiders will be allowed to the panchayat till the Covid-19 scare was over. Instead of many people going out of the panchayat for essential needs like buying commodities, one or two persons would got out for meeting the needs of all and they would remain in quarantine for 14 days after returning.
Varghese said that already sufficient essential commodities to meet requirements for nearly two months were stocked at Edamalakkudy. Once heavy rains begin, it would be very difficult to reach Edmalakkuty as the forest roads would get damaged.
The online education programmes of the Kerala government was also reaching Edamalakkudy where there are around 100 students.
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