Thiruvananthapuram, Jul 10: Kerala Chief Minister, Shri Pinarayi Vijayan today said that the Covid situation in the State is under control even though there is no significant decline in the spread of Covid in the state. The average Test Positivity Rate (TPR) for the last three days is 10.5%, up from 10.2%.
Briefing the media, the Chief Minister said, “Restrictions, including lockdown, cannot continue indefinitely. We need to get back to a normal situation as soon as possible and it is important to create the conditions for that. That is why the restrictions are being phased out. The Covid second wave started in Kerala in May much later than in other states. At one stage, TPR was as high as 29% and daily cases were above 40,000. Now it’s down to 10% and remains largely unchanged in the last few days. The number of deaths also has increased corresponding to the increase in the number of cases. We can confidently say that there is no need for excessive worry and things are under control.”
Meanwhile, 14,087 new Covid-19 cases were reported in Kerala today from 1,31,682 sample tests in the last 24 hours (TPR 10.7%). Today 109 recent deaths were confirmed as caused by Covid taking the related death toll in the State to 14,489. At the same time, 11,867 patients have recovered from the disease and currently, there are 1,15,226 persons undergoing treatment in the State. As of today, there are 196 local bodies with a TPR above 15% where triple lockdown is enforced.
The CM also informed that about 90% of the Covid patients were treated free in government hospitals. “This is an achievement that no other state can achieve. We were able to provide appropriate treatment to patients in hospitals and in ICUs even when the number of patients was at its peak. However, more than 60-70% of beds in Covid hospitals were never used. The beneficiaries of KASP (Karunya Healthcare Scheme) were treated free in 252 private hospitals which are part of this scheme. The government has also regulated the cost of treatment in other private hospitals.”
According to the Sero Prevalence Study conducted by ICMR at the end of the first wave, the prevalence rate in Kerala was only about half (11.4%) as compared to other states (21.6%). Therefore, the incidence of second-wave disease was higher in the state which resulted in a higher number of patients. Accordingly, the number of tests was increased significantly.
The CM also disclosed that 43% of the people over the age of 18 in the State have already been vaccinated with at least one dose and 12% of people have received both doses. “Kerala is a leader in vaccination. We are ahead of other states in distributing the vaccine without wasting and the Center has also commended Kerala in this regard.” He also informed that the guidelines for the vaccination of pregnant women will be published soon.