States with their limited resources will have to shoulder the greater burden of economic crisis that will follow COVID-19, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in an e-mail interview, adding that Kerala plans to open up the construction sector in the non-hotspot areas to help migrant workers earn a living during the lockdown.
Kerala has managed to flatten the COVID-19 curve, which other States are still struggling to do. What is it that Kerala primarily got right ?
The State administration, socio-political organisations, voluntary organisations and the general public at large are jointly taking on this menace. I feel that the flattening of the curve has happened because of this united resolve. At the same time, we are guarded against any complacency that can creep in at any time and any juncture.
As you may recall, we had to undertake a tedious path of observation, detection, prevention, chasing the contacts, isolation and treatment as part of the strict regime we adopted right from the beginning. The country’s first coronavirus case was detected in Kerala on January 30 after a student who returned from Wuhan in China was tested positive. Two more Wuhan returnee students later tested positive. Following the detection of positive cases, we declared a ‘State calamity warning’ and over 3,000 contacts of these patients were placed under surveillance. We have managed to do contact tracing well.
Till date, (as on April 16) there have been a total of 387 confirmed cases of coronavirus infection in Kerala and 167 patients are currently under treatment in various hospitals across the State. 264 of the confirmed cases were people who had come to Kerala from outside the State and from abroad, eight were foreign nationals and 114 were cases of local transmission.
Kerala’s inalienable strength is our excellent social infrastructure, built over a period of time.
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When this government assumed office in 2016, we constituted four missions to address Kerala’s new generation problems. One of the four, “Aardram” mission, is to improve our public health sector to global standards. We have already converted 170 primary health centres to Family Health Centres, where more facilities have been provided. We have provided more doctors, nurses and technicians to facilitate this. In the second phase, we are converting 504 PHCs to Family Health Centres.
And finally, we make it a point to have maximum possible testing done on a daily basis to ensure that our protocols are in position.
During the Prime Minister’s meeting with the Chief Ministers, you had suggested that post April 14 when the first round of lockdown was to end, the migrant workers should be allowed to return home in special trains. The Union Government doesn’t seem to be heeding to your advice.
First of