Kerala HC asks officials to control crowds as virus spreads

TRIVANDRUM: Kerala High Court on Thursday directed the state government to explain why it allows crowds at liquor outlets while the spread of infections continues without respite.

Justice Devan Ramachandran pointed out that one-third of the new COVID-19 cases being reported in India is from the southern state.

He wondered why some 500 people gather at a liquor outlet when the number of guests at weddings is restricted to 10 and funerals 20.

A division bench of chief justice S Manikandan and justice Shaji P Chaly, which registered a suo moto case on his leter, sought an affidavit on this before Tuesday.

Kerala State Beverages Corporation has a monopoly on the liquor trade in the state while its Bevco brand shares the retail outlets with another state-run entity, Consumerfed. The court said it cannot ignore such incidents and asked for an explanation from the state government.

Justice Ramachandran has on July 5, 2017, directed the authorities to prevent Bevco customers from forming long queues in public places.

He had also directed the government to provide basic facilities to the customers, observing that making them stand in a queue in public is detestable.

On Wednesday, Kerala reported 15,600 more infections when the total number nationally was only 45,892.

The test positivity rate is on the rise again and it was 10.36 as against the weekly average of 10.33 while it is 2.37 nationally.

As the situation remained alarming in Kerala, which is under the threat of an early third wave of the pandemic, federal authorities have asked the state to act fast.

In a leter to the state government, federal health secretary Rajesh Bhushan urged immediate quarantine and isolation of all positive cases and their close contacts.

The federal health ministry had this week rushed a team of experts to the state to examine what went wrong. According to them, Kannur, Kasaragod, Kollam, Kozhikode, Malappuram, Palakkad and Thrissur and Thrissur are the most vulnerable districts where the TPR remains high.

Kollam and Wayanad have shown an increase in the number of deaths for the past four weeks while Thrissur and Malappuram reported more than 70 deaths in a week.

For early identification, they suggested increased testing in the districts with more than 10 per cent cases, preferably the RT-PCR tests to maintain the TPR below five per cent.