Chief Minister, Shri Pinarayi Vijayan today declared that Kerala has managed to attain a basic reproduction number of Covid-19 at an impressive R0 of 0.45 as against the world average of 3. In epidemiology, the basic reproduction number of an infection (denoted by R0) is the count of the spread of the infection from one patient to others (how many others are infected from one person).

Briefing the media, the Chief Minister said, “The uniqueness of our preventive measures in tackling Covid-19 has been our emphasis on public health and the five components of Trace, Quarantine, Test Isolate and Treat. In most places with maximum cases, Trace & Quarantine was avoided but other steps were fully implemented. We could contain the spread because of such interventions and the decentralised public health system is our biggest strength.

75% of the active Covid-19 cases in Kerala came from outside and only 25% were from local contact. We could attain a basic reproduction number of Covid-19 at 0.45. Only very few countries could achieve this figure. With the serial interval of an average of five days, we could contain the disease. A higher number would have meant a higher number of cases and more deaths.”

The CM also added that we have been able to effectively implement tracing and quarantine to prevent an outbreak. Home quarantine and contact tracing should be continued vigorously in future. He once again reiterated that there is no community spread of Coronavirus in the State even though the epidemiological linkage or the origin could not be traced in some cases. They will be treated as cases infected through secondary contacts.