Twelve staff, including the chief priest Periyanambi, of the famous Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala have been tested positive for COVID-19. Subsequently, the temple administration has decided to temporarily shut the temple for devotees till October 15.
However, the daily rituals at the temple will continue with the minimum number of employees required. Tantri Sarananellur Satheesan Namboothirippadu has arrived at the temple to take over the responsibilities of puja in the absence of the head priest.
The temple, which was closed owing to the pandemic lockdown since March 21, was opened for devotees on August 27 after adhering to strict COVID-19 protocols.
Meanwhile, even as India reported its first sustained decline in the number of active coronavirus cases in the last two weeks, the situation in Kerala has been on the contrary. The state, which took six months to go from zero to 10,000 COVID cases, is now witnessing a second wave of the pandemic. Kerala’s burden of active cases has risen more than two-fold over the last two weeks, to 92,246. This is a tenth of the total count in India. Only Maharashtra and Karnataka have more, but their spreads are much slower.
Eight of the 10 districts with the worst spikes in infections in the last week are in Kerala. The case-load jumped over 20% in all 14 districts of the state in this period.
On Thursday, Kerala reported 5,445 new cases of COVID-19. There are 2,71,439 people under observation in various districts of the state while 2,42,056 under home or institutional quarantine and 29,383 in isolation at hospitals.