Kerala offers in-car dining as cases move up

TRIVANDRUM: Kerala will offer “in-car” dining facilities as its COVID-19 caseload continues to be high and restaurants remain closed except for takeaway counters and home delivery.

The southern state, which last week ended a month-long lockdown in places where the test-positivity rate is below 30 per cent, has the highest number of daily cases in India.

However, a strict lockdown on the weekends, shuting all but essential services and sealing roads except highways, continues.

The state-run Kerala Tourism Development Corporation (KTDC) is launching a novel facility that serves travellers food inside their vehicles.

The authorities said it would allay health risks while eating in public spaces and help to accelerate more economic activities.

Customers can remain in their parked vehicles, to where orders placed at KTDC’S restaurants will reach, according to tourism minister PA Mohamed Riyas.

“The scheme will address the fear of public safety hazards as a slide in the second wave of the pandemic is expected to help the tourism industry pick up,” he said.

“In the process, it seeks to provide our customers with a new experience. We plan to reach out to the people with safe and tasty food.”

Breakfast, lunch and dinner besides snacks, will be served under ‘In-car Dining’, adhering to Covid-19 protocols. “KTDC hotel chains will be renovated under the project ‘Mission Facelit’ ater classifying them on a priority basis,” he said.

“Moreover, floating restaurants will be set up in select destinations across the state on the lines of the one at Veli here, the first of which will come up in Kadalundi.”

On Sunday, Kerala reported 12,443 new cases, which is 21.30 per cent of India’s new infections, with a test positivity rate of 10.22 per cent as against 3.22 nationally.

The weekly average of the TPR was 11.19 per cent which is less than the all-time average of 12.8 per cent since the first case was reported on January 30 last year. The hospitalisation has also drastically come down easing the demand for hospital beds and ventilators and now only 27,867 people are geting treated at hospitals.

The state officially confirmed 1,15 more deaths taking the total fatalities to 11,948, but the experts say the actual number is much higher.

The active case pool in the state now has 106,861 patients and 427,754 people are under home isolation.

The ICU admissions of critically ill COVID patients declined to 2,572 and those on ventilators to 1,088.