Kerala raised a strong strategy-based defence against COVID-19 and the State can be proud of the fact that it has saved innumerable lives by ensuring that the peak of the epidemic was delayed and that the number of patients never went beyond the health system’s surge capacity, Health Minister K.K. Shylaja has said.
The State had efficiently implemented the test, trace, quarantine and treat strategy, and had adopted the policy of hospitalising patients early so that they could be managed before the complications of COVID-19 set in. This policy of early hospitalisation and management was what helped the State keep its COVID-19 case fatality down at 0.4%, she added.
The Health Minister was interacting with the media at a function here on Saturday to launch the Health Department’s ‘Back to Basics’ campaign. The campaign aimed at communicating to the public the importance of maintaining vigil against COVID-19 and reducing disease transmission by strictly following all COVID protocols including masking, maintaining physical distancing, and hand hygiene.
Ms. Shylaja claimed that the State, which has the highest population density in the country, could combat COVID well because of adequate preparedness, strict implementation of reverse quarantine, and innovative campaigns like ‘Break the Chain’, which had drawn the attention of the entire nation.
She also refuted arguments that the State was not doing adequate testing and said that what Kerala did was testing in clusters as well as focussed testing of symptomatic people .
Ms. Shylaja also disputed allegations that the State was not reporting all COVID deaths faithfully and said that all WHO regulations on death auditing was strictly followed.
Principal Secretary (Health) Rajan Khobragade, National Health Mission Director Ratan Kelkar, State Planning Board member B. Ekbal, chairperson of the State Medical Board A. Santhosh Kumar, Associate Professor of Community Medicine, Thiruvananthapuram Medical College, T.S. Anish, and Head of Infectious Diseases, Thiruvananthapuram MCH, R. Aravind also spoke.
