COVID-19: Get us Kerala doctors, nurses, TMC tells Maha govt

The Thane Municipal Corporation has sent a request to the Maharashtra government to provide 100 doctors and 300 nurses from Kerala to contain the novel coronavirus outbreak here, a senior civic official said on Sunday. The number of COVID-19 cases in Thane municipal limits is closing in on the 4,000-mark and stood at 3,919 as on Saturday night.

"The request to the Maharashtra government to arrange 100 doctors and 300 nurses from Kerala was made after two doctors from there held a meeting here with civic officials on ways to tackle the outbreak," TMC spokesperson and deputy municipal commissioner Sandeep Malavi said. He said Dr SS Santhosh Kumar, Deputy Superintendent of the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College, held a meeting with the Thane municipal chief and senior civic health department officials.

The southern state, which saw its and the country's first COVID-19 case in January, managed to contain the outbreak effectively over the next few months, leading to praise from all quarters on what started being called the "Kerala model". However, cases have started rising over the past few days in Kerala as migrants returned from abroad as well as other states of the country.