Union minister V Muraleedharan on Wednesday hit out at Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan over the worsening coronavirus disease (Covid-19) situation in the state and said that the state government “clearly failed” to protect people’s lives.
Kerala, which has been contributing the maximum number of cases towards India’s daily Covid-19 tally, recorded 24,296 infections on Tuesday, marking the highest single-day spike since May 27, when 24,166 people were detected Covid-19 positive.
Tuesday’s case count in Kerala is also the biggest single-day surge by any other state or Union Territory in the country.
Taking to Twitter, Muraleedharan said, “Alarming Covid-19 situation in Kerala. @vijayanpinarayi has clearly failed to protect people’s lives. Kerala alone recorded 24,296 cases and 173 deaths yesterday. @vijayanpinarayi’s illogical strategy and motivated media propaganda costing dearly to the nation.”
Amid increasing caseload in Kerala, Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya visited the state last week and announced a package ₹267.35 crore for the Pinarayi Vijayan government to strengthen its fight against the viral disease.
“Additionally, ₹1 crore will be made available to each district of Kerala for creating a medicine pool,” Mandaviya tweeted on August 16 after he held an interaction with chief minister Vijayan, state health minister Veena Geroge and other officials.
Mandaviya also said that Kerala will be given top priority in allocation of vaccine doses. “For prioritising the health of children, paediatric ICU to be established in district hospitals with a 10 kilo-litre liquid oxygen storage tank facility,” the Union health minister wrote on the microblogging site.
Kerala has so far recorded 3,851,984 cases due to the coronavirus disease which include 19,757 deaths, 3,672,357 discharges and 159,335 active cases. The Covid-19 positivity rate stands at 18.04 per cent and 134,706 samples were tested in the last 24 hours.
