Thiruvananthapuram:
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan Saturday said the state was performing well on all COVID-19 parameters as decided by the WHO and ICMR despite the rising number of new active cases. Vijayan said as compared to most of the other States, Kerala has performed well due to proactive COVID-19 mitigation measures taken by the state government.
“Even though the numbers of new cases are increasing, we could contain the spread of the pandemic. The level of caution and action took here as part of the defence activities can be seen in comparison to the situation in other states. Whatever the indicators, we are dealing with this pandemic in a relatively better way,” Vijayan said.
The chief minister said Kerala has 2,168 cases per million as against the national average of 2,731. The number of cases per million gives an idea about how many people per million people were infected.
“Andhra Pradesh has 8,479 cases per million and it is more than 5,000 in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. We must also remember that we are far ahead of these states in terms of population density,” he said. He also said that Kerala has a strict discharge policy where the patient is discharged only after the antigen test is negative while in most other States, they are discharged after 10 days if there are no symptoms.
Vijayan also said Kerala has one of the lowest mortality rates of 8.4 deaths per million as compared to the national average of 48 and pointed out the numbers of neighbouring states of Tamil Nadu where it is almost 11 times higher than Kerala while in Karnataka, the death toll is about 12 times higher. “The case fatality rate is the number of deaths per 100 infected persons. In Kerala, it is 0.4 while it is 1.7 in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, and 0.9 in Andhra Pradesh,” Vijayan told reporters.
The Chief Minister said Kerala is the most populous state in India in terms of the number of elderly and those suffering from diseases like cancer and diabetes. “Yet maintaining the lowest death toll is a testament to the excellence of our work across the country. Kerala is far ahead in terms of tests as well.
It follows the methods defined by agencies like the World Health Organization and the ICMR. Accordingly, if we use the scientific indicator Tests per Million by Case per Million, we can see that we are conducting tests in a better way,” Vijayan said.
The Chief Minister added that even though these parameters are low, the state government will analyze the figures and take all possible steps to reduce the spread of the disease in the coming days.
