Concern as man who violated quarantine norms tests positive

Many contacts placed under observation

The violation of quarantine norms by a man who arrived in the city from Maharashtra last week has sent a host of people, including a sub inspector, from three police station limits into quarantine after he was tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 on Saturday.

The 29-year-old arrived from Thane by train on June 22 and was sent home with quarantine advisory.

On reaching his rented house at Pattalam in Fort Kochi, he found it closed. He allegedly had a run-in with the houseowner, who has been sent into quarantine now.

He then withdrew money from a Canara Bank branch in Fort Kochi, and had a haircut from a barber shop at Mattancherry, followed by a shower in a public toilet across the Dutch Palace in Mattancherry. Both the facilities and the shop from where he bought a soap now remain closed.

“We have sent the barber and the first customer to use the facility after him into quarantine while the successive customers are being tracked,” said Mattancherry police sources. The staff at Canara Bank have also been quarantined.

The man is then learnt to have contacted an autorickshaw driver, his acquaintance from Palluruthy. They bought liquor from an outlet at Thoppumpady, and consumed it inside the autorickshaw. The driver is now in quarantine.

‘Created ruckus’

Later, the man reportedly returned to Pattalam area and created a ruckus, following which the public alerted Fort Kochi police.

“We received the call around 9 p.m. and when we reached he was in an intoxicated state and in no mood to cooperate. So, I had to overpower him,” said the sub inspector, who went into quarantine after the incident. A driver and two other police personnel have also been sent into quarantine though they had no direct contact with the man.

There was some delay in the arrival of an ambulance and the man was placed in institutional quarantine at Edakochi around 11.30 p.m.

The police registered a case against him invoking the Kerala Epidemic Diseases Ordinance. The swab test of the sub inspector has not yet been conducted as he is yet to show symptoms of COVID-19.

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