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Covid severity on decline, says Kerala health minister, govt tweaks regulations
Kerala has recently been contributing more than half of the daily virus caseload in the country. On Tuesday, it reported 23,676 new virus cases and recorded a test positivity rate of 11.87%.
Kerala on Wednesday tweaked its Covid-19 containment policies to restrict lockdown only to Sundays and allowed shops and businesses to operate on the remaining days till 9pm claiming the severity of the disease was on a decline though cases were on the rise, inviting criticism from the opposition.
Kerala health minister Veena Geroge told the assembly that economic activities and virus containment measures will have to be balanced while announcing a couple of important changes in the Covid containment protocol in place in the state.
“Occupancy of hospital beds and oxygen beds [has] decreased considerably. Hospitals are not facing unusual rush or pressure. That shows that the severity of the disease is coming down,” the minister said.
Kerala has recently been contributing more than half of the daily virus caseload in the country. On Tuesday, it reported 23,676 new virus cases and recorded a test positivity rate of 11.87%. In the last five days, the state has reported around 100,000 cases. Out of the 18 worst-affected districts nationally, 10 are from the state. Almost 60% of Covid and oxygen beds in the state are occupied.
The opposition said the minister was drawing a rosy picture when the situation was going from bad to worse and alleged that the relaxations were granted under pressure from the businesses and daily wage earners, following a spate of suicides and protests by the trading community. For longer than the last three months, the lockdown was enforced on weekends in the state.
“The government will own responsibility for the sorry state also. It left everything to bureaucrats and police. As cases surge the minister is saying they are on the decline. There is a mismatch between its words and deeds,” said opposition leader V D Satheesan.
The health minister said that the government will now adopt a micro-cluster approach for virus containment and impose lockdowns locally on the basis of test positivity rate of each of the clusters, made of 1000 people each. If 10 or more people in any cluster are found positive, there will be a triple lockdown in the particular cluster, she said.
Public health expert Dr S S Lal said, “We have been telling the government that its containment polices are not scientific. It seems the Central team’s rap forced the government to open its eyes,” Dr Lal said. The visiting central team had said that its lockdown policies were not scientific and needed to be redrawn.
As per the tweaked guidelines, the maximum number of people allowed in weddings and funerals will remain at 20 and there will be no lockdown on two Sundays on August 15 and 22 owing to the Onam festivities. Ban on social and religious gathering will continue, she said.
She said the health department has started a study on breakthrough Covid infections and re-infections. Breakthrough infection refers to a fully vaccinated person getting infected and re-infection refers to a completely recovered individual getting infected again with Covid 19.
The minister added that the government was willing to check the Covid deaths list to check for incorrect exclusions following opposition leader V D Satheesan recently releasing a list of 7,000 deaths he claimed were caused by Covid between January 1 and July 15 this year, but were excluded from government records. Many experts have also expressed concern over the alleged underreporting of Covid deaths.
A senior doctor at the Thiruvananthapuram medical college hospital said the daily average of admission of Covid-19 patients in 14 district hospitals was currently 300 and the daily average of cured Covid patients getting discharged was 220. He however claimed that though the cases have surged, there was no unusual pressure on the health system.
