Leading members of the Malayalee community have called on the authorities in Kerala to ease up on the Covid-19 restrictions on families returning home from Bahrain.
The Bahrain Keraleeya Samajam (BKS), established in 1947, is one of the oldest and largest expatriate organisations in the kingdom and represents many of the 300,000 Keralites living in the kingdom.
Many of us who have been away from our native place for long due to the adverse circumstances created by the pandemic need to visit Kerala for some urgent requirements like visiting families, educational purpose, attending interviews, marriages etc,” said its president P V Radhakrishna Pillai.
“Most of us will be coming on short vacation and have to return immediately to rejoin work. Students are the worst affected as they are coming to their home state either to attend admission tests or exams.”
He described the Kerala authority’s imposition of two-week quarantine on passengers coming from the Gulf region as ‘painful’.
While he says he appreciates the concern of the Kerala government in taking adequate safety measures due to the pandemic, the organisation requests it takes a more ‘lenient’ stand, especially for those travelling from Bahrain, for the several reasons, it says:
- The number of Covid-19 cases in Bahrain has been ‘substantially reduced’ to an average of less than 300 cases reported daily.
- Due to tough penalties for health violations, residents and citizens are following strict safety measures.
- Vaccination has been started and a sizable portion of the population has already been inoculated.
- All passengers leaving Bahrain undergo a PCR test within 72 hours of travel.
- Protective measures including face masks are compulsory for all passengers.
- Upon arrival in Kerala, all passengers are subjected to another PCR test.
- Surrounding Indian states do not implement compulsory quarantine for passengers coming from abroad other than a PCR test.
- In all Gulf states, incoming passengers are required to undergo PCR tests and if negative, they need not undergo quarantine and are allowed to carry on working the following day.
“We earnestly request to ease the quarantine restrictions imposed on incoming passengers from Bahrain,” added Mr Pillai.
Mr Pillai
The ongoing trend of contraction of India’s daily new Covid-19 cases continues with the country recording less than 20,000 daily new infections over recent days, the Union Health Ministry said.
In a span of 24 hours, only 16,946 people were found to be infected with Covid-19 in India last Thursday.
In the same period, the country also registered 17,652 new recoveries ensuring a net decline of 904 cases in the active caseload, the ministry said.
However, Kerala continues to report the highest daily new cases at 6,004.
It is followed by Maharashtra and Karnataka with 3,556 and 746 new cases, respectively.
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