Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said that the second wave of COVID-19 is likely to be prolonged in the State as Kerala still has a huge population of susceptible individuals who are yet to be exposed to the virus. It was quite possible that when lockdown is relaxed, many of these people might get infected, keeping disease transmission a continuous process.
He appealed to the people to take the collective responsibility of preventing an upsurge in COVID-19 cases, a third wave and future lockdowns in the State by maintaining all COVID-19 protocols strictly as lockdown restrictions are being relaxed. Crowding should be avoided on the streets and public places at all costs.
Addressing the media here on Tuesday, Mr. Vijayan said that no country had been able to totally wipe out or stop COVID-19. The only strategy that the governments could adopt was strengthening health system infrastructure and ensuring that disease transmission was kept to a certain level so that health systems were not stressed. This had been managed very well in Kerala, he said.
Even at the peak of the second wave, only 63% of ICU bed strength and only 32% ventilators had been used. Mucormycosis, a fungal infection which seemed to flare up for a while during the pandemic, had been brought under control in the State.
The average test positivity rate in the State for the past three days was 12.1%. In all districts, except Thiruvananthapuram, the TPR was less than 15%.
5% increase likely
Mr. Vijayan said that according to projections, Thiruvananthapuram was likely to see an increase in new cases by 5% in the next week. However, Statewide, a 16% reduction in new cases was expected.
It was important to know ahead if and when the third wave was upon the State and hence disease surveillance and genomic surveillance studies would be strengthened, Mr. Vijayan said.