With Kerala’s Covid cases rising and becoming a cause of concern for the Centre, the state said it was following appropriate measures, but that it sought to expand vaccinations and become more rigid with isolation facilities.
Kerala Health Minister Veena George said she had requested her counterpart in the Centre Mansukh Mandaviya for 1 crore and 11 lakh vaccines, adding that he had guaranteed the jabs by September 30. “If we get the vaccines, we will be able to inoculate all eligible people with their first dose by September 30,” she said.
George said that although the number of positive cases was increasing – Kerala has been reporting over 30,000 cases for the past days – the severity of disease in these infections was less. She said ICU, ventilator-occupancy was well below or around the 50% mark.
The state Health Minister reiterated that the situation was under control, adding that during the Onam celebrations, no public gatherings were allowed. “The second wave started by mid-April and peaked on May 12. In May, the daily caseload went up to 40,000. At that point, the Test Positivity Rate was at around 30%. Later, we managed to bring it down to about 10% and there was a plateau,” she said.
Kerala Urges Citizens to Follow Measures Amid Covid Spike
Veena George said the state government was appealing to the public to follow Covid-appropriate behaviour. She said Kerala was the only state conducting studies on various parameters like breakthrough infection, and that it was following guidelines by the ICMR and WHO for controlling the spike of cases.
Some steps recommended by the Kerala government:
- If a person is Covid-positive, they must be in room quarantine.
- If there is no such facility at home, they can use DCC and CFLTS, to help avoid home clusters.
- The government said it was conducting both RT-PCR and Antigen tests. In an antigen test is positive, it was a confirmed case of Covid-19, but if the antigen test was negative and symptoms persisted, then an RT-PCR would be conducted for confirmation.
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