As COVID-19 numbers are swelling dangerously with every passing day, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday said there was no reason to panic.
Kerala's TPR or test positive rate (the number of positives for every 100 tests), and case fatality rate (CFR) were considerably lower than the national average. There was no need to worry about community transmission either as nearly 90 per cent of the positive cases in Kerala have come infected from outside.
The Chief Minister also said it was not as if the government was caught off guard by the sudden spike in numbers. “We expected the numbers to go up when people come from outside,” he said. He assured that the health system was fully prepared to absorb far greater numbers of positive cases.
System ready to absorb higher numbers
Indicating the strain the system will soon be put under, the number of people admitted in hospitals has crossed 1,000 for the first time on Friday; it is now 1080. Today alone, 231 were admitted in hospitals, the highest admission in a day till now.
The Chief Minister said in the 1,296 government hospitals alone, there are 49,702 beds, 1,369 ICU beds and 1045 ventilators.
In the 866 private sector hospitals, there are 81,904 beds, 6,059 ICU beds and 1,578 ventilators. The state also has 851 Corona Care Centres. “So, there is no need to panic just because the numbers are increasing,” the Chief Minister said during his customary sunset briefing in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday.
South Korean standards
He said Kerala's TPR was 1.7 per cent, which means when 100 tests are conducted 1.7 persons turned positive. For the whole of India, this is 5 per cent. Only South Korea has TPR lower than 2 per cent.
Case fatality rate, too, was low in Kerala, a 0.5 per cent. "Low TPR and CFR show that enough tests are being conducted in Kerala," the Chief Minister said.
Till now, Kerala has done 80,091 tests. There are 2,335 tests for every 10 lakh people. "In Kerala, we get one positive case only when the samples of 71 people are tested. For India as a whole, a positive case is detected for every 23 tests. This means our testing rate is three times that of the national average," the Chief Minister said.
Contact confusion
It were the low numbers of 'contact cases' that Pinarayi Vijayan held up to rule out community transmission. Contact cases are people who got the virus from those coming into the state infected. According to the Chief Minister, their number (an indication of the extent to which the virus has radiated into the community from returning Malayalis) was very low.
Of the 644 cases reported since May 10, only 65 or 10.09 per cent got the infection through contact. If all the 557 active cases are taken into account, the number that had got infected through contacts is only 45 or 8.07 per cent.
Problem is, authorities have not been able to trace the source of infection in at least half of these cases.
The Chief Minister also said the sentinel surveillance the state was carrying out to detect community transmission had thrown up just four positive cases.
But that was when only 4,400 tests were done under the sentinel surveillance project. By now, 11,468 samples had been taken and at least 13 health care workers with no known source of infection were found positive.
Unaccounted 'orphan' cases on the rise
The Chief Minister himself said 28 health workers have been infected in Kerala. But he said all of them were infected during patient care. Fact is, the source of infection of the ASHA worker in Kollam's Chathannoor, detected in the first round of sentinel surveillance, has still not been traced. All trails had led to dead ends.
The Chief Minister's categorisation of 'contact cases' also looked convenient. For instance, he said there was only one contact case among the 62 fresh cases reported on Friday.
In the same breath he said two remand prisoners, a health worker and two in Air India's cabin crew were also found positive.
Air India's cabin crew could have got the infection before they had landed in Kerala, probably from any of the silent carriers in the flight they worked. But what about the two remand prisoners and the health worker? The chances of the health worker transmitting to the community is high.
Thug lives
One of the remand prisoner is said to be a much sought after bootlegger. He was arrested after his family lodged a complaint against him. The other was involved in a pubic brawl. Tracing their contacts will be a herculean task.
With more remand prisoners getting infected, putting at risk jail officials and other inmates, it has been decided to identify one centre each in all districts to quarantine and observe prisoners before they are shifted to the main jail. Only a limited number of policemen will be be put on duty in these centres.
Already, officials and inmates in Thiruvananthapuram, Neyyatinkara and Kannur sub-jails are under strict observation after inmates from there have tested positive. Some of their samples have also been taken to check for infection.
