On Friday, Kerala recorded 16,338 fresh COVID-19 cases and 199 more deaths, a government bulletin said. Owing to the spike in COVID cases, a review meeting chaired by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was held on Friday and major decisions were made with regards to managing crowds. The government has announced mored restrictions, which includes the shut down of schools for classes up to 9 from 21st January. However, the classes will be continued online. "The decision on whether to continue with online form of classes or not will be taken after the second week of February. The school authorities will be given the authority to shut down the classes for two weeks in case the institution becomes a cluster," said the CM's office.

The government has also approved the work-from-home system for pregnant employees of government institutions. However, night curfew or weekend curfew have not been imposed. At places where the Test Positivity Rate (TPR) is over 20 percent, will face a few restrictions such as gathers will be restricted to no more than 50 persons. No public events will be allowed in places with TPR over 30%. The chief minister has also requested those Sabarimala pilgrims who have booked their slots from 16 January to reschedule their visits.