A hilly district in the Travancore region of Kerala- Pathanamthitta- is showing the way to others, on how to deal with the countrywide outbreak of COVID-19.
The district has only 13 of the 286 cases in the state. It has been removed from the hotspot list of the union health ministry, while Kasargod still remains in it.
The credit for it largely goes to the collector of this district, PB Nooh (IAS:2012:KL). Nooh had raised an alarm when thousands of devotees gathered in Sabarimala on March 13. Following his report, the state government closed the Sabarimala shrine to devotees, to check the spread of COVID-19.
Pathanamthitta was the first district in kerala to use the flow charts to keep track of the contacts of the infected persons.
They prepared a flow chart of a family which had returned from Italy on February 29 and tested positive for coronavirus. The chart traced to where all the family had travelled and whom they met after landing at the airport. Many relatives and friends of the family had also tested positive. The administration then put nearly 1300 persons under observation.
All three family members and eight of their contacts have since recovered from coronavirus and have been discharged from hospital.
Pathanamthitta was the first district in the state to locate quarantine violators with the help of a geo-fencing application. It is installed on a person’s mobile phone, and alerts the authorities if they step out of their house.
