Kerala's Health Minister K K Shailaja, lauded by many for leading the state's fight against COVID-19, is now one among the 50 that British magazine Prospect has recognized in its list of world's top thinkers 2020.
The list includes New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, French economist and Nobel Prize winner Esther Duflo, African American novelist, three-time Hugo Award winner NK Jemisin, Irish actress Sally Rooney and historian William Dalrymple.
Twenty-three women have found a place in the list and Shailaja is the only Indian in it (discounting the Scottish historian Dalrymple who, for the greater part of the last four decades, has made India his home).
The magazine will name the Top Thinker of the Year and Top-10 Thinkers in its next issue (September 1). The selection will be based on readers' votes and thoughts of the editorial panel. You may cast your votes here.
The magazine says Shailaja has been credited with flattening the COVID-19 curve and securing a low fatality rate in the southern Indian state. It also invoked the moniker - Coronavirus slayer - that British newspaper The Guardian made popular.
Leading from the front
Long before news of a far-away virus started finding its deserved space in local media, the cogs that made up Kerala's famed health infrastructure had slowly been turning, raising the guard against what it knew would be an imminent threat.
The state wasted no time at all. Advice was sought, instated and even revised to meet evolving challenges and soon, when the first COVID-19 case found its way to Kerala on January 27, the state was ready.
At the height of the outbreak, Kerala saw 1,70,000 in quarantine, another 1,50,000 migrant workers trapped in the state following the closure of borders cared for.
The successful implementation of the World Health Organisation's (WHO) protocol of test, trace, isolate and support and Break the Chain campaigns saw the first two outbreaks in the state quelled in no time.
In this, they were greatly helped by the experience gained while curbing 2018's Nipah virus outbreak. That's not all, Kerala had by then developed a strong chain of command, starting from the top health department officials in Thiruvananthapuram to the field workers on the ground, all augmented in their work by a string of primary health centres at strategic locations across the state.
Now, in the third phase of the virus outbreak, even as the single-day spike of COVID-19 cases shows no sign of relenting, Kerala can take relief in the fact that the mortality rate in the state is 0.3 per cent while for the rest of India, it stands well over 2.25 per cent.
