Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Government had persisted with weekend lockdowns for a while to contain COVID-19. Despite such efforts the pandemic refuses to ebb and last week night curfews were re-introduced even as a total lockdown is in force on Sundays and schools still remain shut. However, experts in the health sector have urged the government to do away with such practices now, more than one-and-a-half years since the pandemic reared its ugly head in the State and with it in India.

At the review meeting chaired by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan here on Wednesday, they suggested that steps be taken immediately to reopen schools in the State and strictly enforce only RT-PCR tests instead of antigen tests.

According to the Chief Minister's office, the experts had appreciated the containment measures taken by Kerala from the very beginning.

The experts pointed out that in a seroprevalence survey conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Kerala was the one State where the least number of people got affected by the pandemic.

There is nothing to worry about the statistics on the higher number of cases. It is a good sign that the number of patents admitted in Kerala is going down. Now, attempts should be made to revive the economic and social sectors in the State, the experts opined.

On Wednesday, Kerala recorded 32,803 new COVID-19 cases and the Test Positivity Rate (TPR) stood at 18.76 percent.

While lauding Kerala for being the best among States in dealing with the COVID-19 data, the experts lamented that enough studies on coronavirus prevalence was not taking place in the State.

Many health experts working abroad attended the meet online.