'Planned campaign against us': Kerala health minister complains as concerns rise over Covid-19 situation in state

On Thursday, Kerala logged more than 22,000 fresh infections for a third straight day with the test positivity rate rising to 13.55%.

Kerala health minister Veena George on Thursday complained of a "planned (misinformation) campaign" against the state as it logged more than 22,000 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) for a third straight day. Pointing to a study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), George said it showed Kerala's preventive mechanism was "very good."

"There's a planned campaign against Kerala. All experts in different states say that we have a very good defence mechanism. Seroprevalence study by the ICMR shows that almost 42% of people have antibodies. This shows that our preventive mechanism was very good. More than 50% population is still unaffected," she was quoted as saying by news agency ANI, on a day the southern state recorded 22,064 new Covid-19 cases, with the test positivity rate rising to 13.55%.

The minister blamed the Delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus for the recent surge in cases. "The type of coronavirus which is spreading in this phase is Delta, the infectability is more. So naturally, we're trying our best," George said.

The health minister also outlined the steps the state government is taking to control the situation. "We're conducting maximum tests these days. Yesterday, we conducted over 196,000 tests, while today we did more than 163,000 tests. So, we're trying to do more tests. We want to identify every single positive case," she remarked.

The coronavirus pandemic situation in Kerala has prompted the Union government to rush a six-member central team to the state, while the state government, too, has announced a complete lockdown on July 31 and August 1.

The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has blamed the ruling CPI(M)'s decision to relax restrictions for last week's festival of Bakrid for the spike in cases, while the government has pinned the blame on the Centre's "poor vaccination distribution policy."

On both Wednesday and Thursday, India reported more than 43,000 Covid-19 cases from the preceding 24 hours, according to the Union ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW). Of these, Kerala contributed 22,129 and 22,056 infections, respectively, as per state government's data.