Kerala’s engagement with COVID-19 is not likely to end in a few weeks or months and, hence, the State is bracing itself for the long haul by preparing long-term plans for disease containment as well as health system capacity building, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said.
The State reported 702 new cases and two deaths on Monday. Even though there seemed to be a slight let-up in cases in the State, with 745 recoveries also being reported on the same day, all indications pointed to a likely increase in disease transmission in the coming days, Mr. Vijayan said.
Clusters a concern
Briefing the media here on Monday, he said while disease transmission within clusters seemed to go up on the one hand, on the other, many clusters seemed to be expanding too.
Epidemiologists were being given the task of studying about these clusters and possibly mapping out the clusters where disease transmission was likely to occur.
Locally acquired infections accounted for 536 of the 702 cases reported on Monday, with authorities unable to link the infections to a particular source in at least 35 cases.
Health workers continued to be affected in many hospitals across the State, with 43 of them testing positive on Monday.
The cumulative case burden of the State now stood at 19,727 cases. With 10,054 recoveries reported till date, the number of active cases now was 9,611.
Two deaths were reported on Monday in Kozhikode and Kottayam, taking the total toll to 63.
Mr. Vijayan said he had been holding forth consultations with health experts as well as political parties and that while the Statewide total lockdown was not desirable, all had in unison spoken about tightening area-wise restrictions to check disease transmission.
Situation grave
The situation in Thiruvananthapuram continued to be grave, where 150 of the 161 cases reported on Monday were locally acquired infections. This included 13 health-care workers too. The district accounted for 2,723 of the active cases in the State.
The seven large clusters in the State showed signs of expanding into other nearby coastal hamlets. And, hence, containment activities had been strengthened.
In anticipation of an increase in case burden, the government was now focussing on preparing COVID first-line treatment centres (CFLTC) and organising and training human resources to man these centres. Students who had completed courses run by the Kerala University of Health Sciences would be roped into the HR team being readied for CFLTCs.
At present, the State had 12,801 beds at 101 CFLTCs across the State, with 45% occupancy. In two phases, the CFLTCs would be increased so that an additional 67,000 beds would be available, Mr. Vijayan said.
More human resources was being found to run CFLTCs. Every CFLTC would have a team headed by a medical officer, with staff nurse, lab technician, and pharmacists as members.
He added that the State intended to screen all police personnel utilising antibody test kits provided by HLL Ltd.
The private health sector was cooperating with the government in providing COVID care. Some 44 non-functional and 42 partially functioning private hospitals would become part of the COVID preparedness efforts of the government.
Mr. Vijayan said the government was considering a recommendation from experts and clinicians that asymptomatic positive patients be treated at home. However, there would have to be clear protocols for monitoring and managing these patients. The Health Department was in the process of preparing these protocols and as soon as these were in place, the government would take up the issue.
