Covid-19: Kerala minister warns of surge in cases, more deaths by month-end

KOCHI: Health minister K K Shailaja has warned of harder times as Covid-19 cases are increasing. After September 21, more relaxations are going to be in place and there is every chance of increase in the caseload and also in the deaths.
“We need to ensure that no patient shall be on the street due to lack of enough hospital beds. We have to equip as many fist line treatment centres as possible.
“We need to prepare for a possible ventilator shortage also. Brace for more deaths too,” Shailaja said while inaugurating the new projects at government medical college, Kalamassery, through online on Thursday.
The state might face shortage of ventilators when the case load increases. Orders have been placed through Kerala medical services corporation for purchasing more ventilators. But there is shortage in the supply.
“In the first two phases, the state fought well against the pandemic and even we could flatten the curve almost to zero. The state received many accolades during this time. But at that time itself we had anticipated the surge when the lockdown relaxation comes into effect,” she said.
“We have fought well and we have to continue this fight. The main aim should be to bring down the number of deaths.
“We know that the state tops in the ageing population and hence the senior citizens are under high risk. That was why we have been giving thrust to reverse quarantine,” the minister said. The state also tops in lifestyle diseases and hence comorbidity is also a worrying factor. Among the deaths reported in the state till date, majority of the cases had comorbidities. “We could bring down the death rate and nationally only Kerala and Assam have the lowest fatality rate,” added the minister.
But this will not be the case when there will more relaxation after September 21. The government is ensuring that there are enough FLTCs to accommodate the patients. All the MLAs and local body representatives will have more responsibilities in the coming days.
“We have to prevent the formation of clusters and for this each people’s representatives have to take the initiative. They have to ensure that all the people with influenza like illness or severe acute respiratory illness symptoms are tested,’’ Shailaja said.