Kerala will go into a nine-day lockdown from Saturday in view of the continuing surge in Covid cases that could soon overwhelm the state’s health services.
The state government on Thursday declared a complete lockdown from May 8 to 16, allowing only essential and emergency services to continue.
Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan had earlier indicated that a complete lockdown would become inevitable if the situation worsened.
State government sources said the lockdown was the last resort to ensure the healthcare system didn’t get overloaded under the rising number of Covid cases that stood at almost 42,000 on Wednesday with 3.75 lakh patients under treatment, most of them in home isolation.