Higher cases, low CFR: Kerala's Covid numbers in 5 charts

NEW DELHI: The Union health ministry on Friday sent central teams to Kerala and five other states reporting a significant surge in daily Covid cases.
For the last 10 days, Kerala has been reporting over 10,000 daily new cases. In fact, it's the only Indian state that is consistently adding over 10,000 cases to its total caseload.

What's particularly worrying about the figures is the fact that Kerala had logged its highest single-day rise within days of India hitting its peak.
But despite its current numbers, Kerala has done well to keep its death rate low vis-a-vis other states and ranks high when it comes testing.
Here's how Kerala has been charting its own Covid course in its fight against the virus ...
Steady, but rocky descent ...
On Friday, Kerala added over 12,800 new cases to its tally. This was 3,700 cases more than Maharashtra, which reported the second highest single-day rise.

Kerala is yet to even touch the numbers it was reporting before the second wave.
The state's 7-day average of daily cases in the first week of April was around 2,700. In the last 7 days, it was over 11,800.
This, despite the fact that Kerala had hit its peak as early as May 13.
In fact, compared to some of the other worst-hit states, Kerala's new cases are the closest to the second wave peak.

The graph shows that Kerala's Friday count was nearly 30% of its peak figure. In comparison, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi are reporting just 0.4% and 0.3% of their peak value.
Even Maharashtra, the worst-hit state during the second wave, is reporting just 13.4% of its peak value.
High testing ...
One thing that can explain Kerala's high numbers is the high rate of testing.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Kerala has been ahead of other states vis-a-vis testing people.

While testing remains high in Kerala, the positivity rate is also above 12%. The test positivity rate - the percentage of all coronavirus tests performed that turn out to be positive - is an important metric through which the public health system keeps tabs on the level of Covid transmission.
The WHO recommends that test positivity should remain at 5 per cent or lower for 14 days before countries or regions reopen.
Thus, it's unclear whether the high numbers are only due to better testing or because the virus is still prevalent in the state.
Overall, Kerala's test per million figure is almost 2.5 times that of the national average since the outbreak.
... low fatalities
Even though it's the second worst-hit state in India in terms of caseload, Kerala has managed to keep deaths under control.

The Pinarayi Vijayan-led state has a case fatality ratio of 0.5%, which is better than the national average of 1.3%. This means that only one person died for every 200 who tested positive for Covid.
Since April 1, Kerala has reported 8,753 deaths due to Covid. In the same period, Maharashtra reported as many as 67,775 deaths.
While there is no clear reason behind the low mortality rate in Kerala, several reports have indicated that it handled the devastating second wave better than others.
TOI had reported that states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu made use of the public health cadre and the different levels of treatment centres to minimise the load on the health system.
On the other hand, Delhi and Maharashtra were caught off guard by a massive surge in cases.