No more night curfews, Sunday lockdowns in Kerala, Govt mulls opening colleges

Thiruvananthapuram: Even as Kerala contributes majorly to India's daily Covid numbers, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday said that the government has decided to lift curfew and the "stringent intensified" restrictions on Sundays.

The announcement came as Kerala reported 25,772 new cases of coronavirus and 189 fatalities today, pushing the caseload to 42,53,298 and total fatalities to date to 21,820.

After daily cases rose to more than 30,000 after the Onam celebrations, Kerala had brought in night curfew from 10 pm to 6 am from Monday to Saturday to check the increasing numbers. But the critics of such Covid-19 measures had argued that movement during the 10 pm-6 am remains minimum without any curfew.

Vijayan, after chairing the meeting, told the media that steps are being put in place to see that all final year students at the graduation and post-graduation levels will have to return to classes from October 4.

"To see that it happens, all have to ensure that those who come to classes on October 4 have at least one dose of vaccination, and this applies to teachers also. Teachers will now get priority and in the next 10 days, all should see that they avail it," he said.

Vijayan, however, ruled out the opening of schools and said that that will be taken up later.

Reacting to the Kerala High Court ruling on Monday that Covishield vaccine second dose can be given after 28 days by private companies, he said the state government also feels it is good, but the decision has to be made by the Centre.

He said on Tuesday, 25,772 people turned Covid positive after 1,62,428 samples were tested in the past 24 hours and the test positivity rate was 15.87 per cent.

As many as 27,320 people turned negative and the total active cases in the state were 2,37,045.

There were 189 Covid deaths, taking the death toll to 21,820.

Vijayan also pointed out that of the total state population, 76.15 per cent have had one dose of the vaccine or 2.18 crore people, while 82 lakh having taken both doses.

"Kerala leads the country as far as vaccination is concerned," he said.