Anomaly of High COVID-19 Cases in a State with Better Health Care Volume 3 - Issue 5

Velayudhan Mohan Kumar*

• Kerala Chapter, National Academy of Medical Sciences, India

Received:September 29, 2021;   Published: October 20, 2021

Corresponding author:Velayudhan Mohan Kumar, Kerala Chapter, National Academy of Medical Sciences (India), New Delhi, India

DOI: 10.32474/JCCM.2021.03.000175

 

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Abstract

Thickly populated Kerala was the first Indian state to get affected by COVID-19 on 2nd Feb 2020. The number of cases here rose much faster than in the rest of India. The containment measures adopted by the state, which brought the infection rate to near zero by the first week of May 2020, were internationally acclaimed. When the expatriates started returning to the state, with the lifting of the lockdown in May 2020, there was again a steep increase in the number of cases. This state with only 2.5% of the Indian population, now accounts for 62% of all the Covid cases in the country. While experts are struggling to explain the anomaly by attributing it to the lower IgG positivity rate in serological surveys and delta variant, some put the blame on the laxity of the people and the indifference of political parties. Others think that the state government had failed to manage institutional quarantine, and to ensure good home quarantine. At the same time, the better health care facility in Kerala is evident from the lower mortality rate, as compared to the rest of India. The Kerala government claims that it is in a comfortable position in terms of ICU and ventilator occupancy, as more than half of them are still lying vacant.

Keywords: Kerala Model; COVID-19; Community Spread; Contact Tracing; Quarantine; Containment Measures; Pandemic

Abstract| Medical Corruption| Possible Reasons for High Infection Rate| Number of Cases May Not Necessarily Reflect Efficiency of Health Care| Conflict of Interest and Disclosure Statement| References|