As Covid-19 cases surged for the third straight day on Friday in Kerala, the state government said it will continue with lockdowns on Sundays with only limited permissible activities. The government had given an exemption in the Sunday lockdowns in the last two weeks due to Independence Day and Onam.
The decision of the Kerala government, which has been under fire from opposition parties and experts for its alleged poor management of the coronavirus pandemic, came after as the state recorded 32,801 cases on Friday, up from 30,007 on Thursday, and as the test positivity rate went up to 19.22 per cent from 18.03 per cent on August 26.
There has been an upward spiral of infections for the past three days and Kerala has been consistently logging over 30,000 cases of Covid-19. Active cases of Covid-19 in the state now stand at 1,95,254, which is the highest in India. Kerala is one of the top contributors in terms of daily Covid-19 cases and accounts for more than half of the active infections in the country at present, the Centre has said.
Kerala’s health department data shows Malappuram recorded the highest Covid-19 cases at 4032, followed by Thrissur at 3953 and Ernakulam at 3627. Kozhikode reported 3362 cases, Kollam saw 2828, Palakkad 2727, Thiruvananthapuram 2255, Alappuzha 2188, Kannur 1984, Kottayam 1877, Pathanamthitta 1288, Idukki 1125, Wayanad 961 and Kasaragod 594, according to data.
The death toll in the state due to Covid-19 has crossed the 20,000 mark and now stands at 20,313 with 179 deaths on Friday.
Amid Kerala Covid surge, Centre steps in
Kerala health minister Veena George has assured that there is no need for panic and chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has rejected the “unwanted” criticism regarding the alleged mishandling of the pandemic in the state. In an article published in the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s magazine ‘Chintha’, he said Kerala has reported “no death due to lack of oxygen” and that “no one has been deprived of medical aid or bed.”
The Centre has suggested Kerala must take a slew of measures, including targeted testing in containment zones and genomic surveillance, to stem the surge of Covid-19 cases. Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said the state has witnessed a sustained and significant transmission of Covid-19 since July as he wrote to Kerala chief secretary on Friday. “Despite efforts by the state government on increasing testing, the test confirmation percentage still remains very high (more than 15 per cent), signalling high and widespread transmission. All 14 districts in Kerala have been identified as districts of concern due to high test positivity rates and high cases per million reported in the past four weeks,” Bhalla said.
Bhushan said containment zones in the state need to be defined with a special focus on the high-transmission clusters. “Such zones need to be re-defined if the proportion of cases being reported outside of containment zones is showing an increase. The buffer zone around the containment zone needs to be identified clearly and passive surveillance needs to be enhanced to detect any spillover of cases from the containment zone,” he said.
He said the contact-tracing efforts should further be scaled up to ensure that at least 20-25 contacts per positive case are identified and all contacts thus identified are put under quarantine.
Bhalla’s letter on Friday came a day after he virtually met officials to review the steps taken by the Kerala and Maharashtra governments to check the spread of Covid-19.
