Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government has issued a notification allowing the family members to take bodies of the deceased, who died of COVID, to do last rites. So far no permission was given to family to take the COVID patients bodies home as per the protocol.
Following a review meeting, CM Pinarayi Vijayan said, "The government wants that the bodies of Covid-19 victims should be laid for homage at their homes for a specific time and for conducting rituals as per their faith. An hour would be allowed for this." Earlier, the pandemic protocol had not allowed the bodies of Covid victims to be laid down at homes.
On Tuesday, the state reported 13,550 new cases with 104 additional deaths. The average TRP across the state presently stands at 11 per cent. With this, the total number of cases in the state has risen to 29,910,507 while the death toll has surged to 13,093. Though the average TPR in the state has gone down from the 29.75 high, it is still over 10 per cent mandating the continuation of lockdown restrictions in the state for one more week. While 165 local bodies have a TRP of less than 6 per cent, 473 have a TRP of 6-12 per cent, 316 between 12-18 per cent and 80 over 18 per cent, the CM informed.
Though only 11 per cent of Kerala's population were affected in the first wave as per ICMR's sero survey against the 21 per cent national average, the disease spread faster statewide in the second wave. However, the second wave also has been arrested in such a way that the health infrastructure can manage the caseload, the CM informed.