Covid-19: Kerala’s TPR at a new high

Test positivity rate (TPR) resumed its upward trend in Kerala and reached a new high of 19.22 per cent on Friday, with 32,801 new daily cases detected on an enhanced sample base of 1,70,703. The number of deaths reported rose to 179, taking the cumulative toll to 20,313.

As against the 32,801 new cases identified, the number of recoveries came in only at 18,573, leaving 28,545 persons under treatment in hospitals. Though currently low, this is the second day that this number has seen a rise, and is being closed watched for any signs of sustaining a trend.

Sunday lockdown back

Meanwhile, the State government is learnt to have brought back the total lockdown on Sundays from this week. The total lockdown had been lifted on the last two weekends (Sundays) because of Independence Day and Onam. But the week after has seen a sudden jump in daily new cases.Malappuram once again topped the daily numbers with 4,032 on Friday, followed by Thrissur (3,953), Ernakulam (3,627), and Kozhikode (3,362).

Four other districts had a number above 2,000 and while another four had 1,000 such cases or above, according to Health Department statistics.

Friday’s TPR at 19.22 per cent is the highest recorded in more than three months. The maximum so far during pandemic is 29 per cent of May at the peak of the second Covid wave. The death rate, too, has seen acceleration during the last month accounting for more than 4,000 lives. The active case pool is another crucial number on a gradual rise at 1,95,254 on Friday (1,81,209 on Thursday).

Friday also saw the Pinarayi Vijayan government complete 100 days in office and came for sustained targeting by the Opposition Congress-led front and the BJP for abject failure of its Covid strategy.

The 100-day-old government has achieved an impossible milestone by guiding the State to the top of the Covid deaths across the country by allowing Covid a free run and take 20,000 lives, said K Sudhakaran, MP, who is also President of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC).

The government also brought home the ignominy of being laden with 65 per cent of the country’s active case pool. While new cases have witnessed a sustained lowering trend, in other states it has trended exactly the opposite in Kerala. The State government had rejected expert advice for course corrections.

K Surendran, President of the State unit of the BJP, ridiculed the Chief Minister for the ‘no show’ with the daily press briefings for Covid update having been done away with just as the infections began to sore and things going out of control. “We miss the 6 pm presser,” he mocked at the Chief Minister.

But Vijayan himself as well as Health Minister Veena George put up a strong defence of the government’s Covid strategy, although they did not refer to mounting criticism against the unscientific lockdown that had invited the wrath of influential people from within the state and without.

The Chief Minister alleged that the Opposition and the BJP are trying to fish in trouble waters and corrupt the image of the government in people’s minds. He dared them to suggest a better Covid strategy that assured low mortality rate and a vaccination drive that saw zero wastage.

COMMENT NOW