The current rise in COVID-19 disease transmission in the State should not be a major concern and this would stabilise soon as the vaccination drive was progressing at a good pace, public health experts from within and outside the country opined at an on-line meeting called by the Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan here on Wednesday, an official statement issued here said.
The meeting of public health experts, epidemiologists and virologists from across the globe was convened by Mr. Vijayan, to discuss Kerala’s COVID containment strategies and to seek their opinion on the way forward for the State.
The fact that hospitalisations in the State have not risen significantly is an indication that the current surge in disease transmission is not dangerous or out of control. Hence the State can now think about opening up the socio-economic sectors more, the meeting opined.
The meeting discussed the possibilities of school reopening and the new strategies in testing, disease containment and vaccination. Experts who participated in the meeting appreciated the State’s excellent data fidelity, the release said.
The experts also commended Kerala on its model COVID containment strategies, which had been effective right from the beginning and as evidenced by the low sero-prevalence reported in ICMR’s sero survey. The experts also praised the State for holding the case fatality rate at a low, the press release said.
Mr. Vijayan said that the suggestions raised by experts from various fields would give a new direction to the State’s COVID containment efforts and that the discussions would be taken forward further.
Those who were part of the meeting feature several big names in global public health, including Devi Sridhar (Chair of Global Public Health, University of Edinburgh); David Peters (Edgar Berman chair in International Health, John Hopkins University); Ajay Mahal (Professor of Health Economics and Global Health Systems Research, University of Melbourne); Anurag Agarwal (Director, IGIB-CSIR, New Delhi); and Shahid Jameel ( Eminent virologist and Director, Trivedi School of Biosciences at Ashoka University); among many others.
The meeting was moderated by B. Ekbal, chairperson of the State’s experts’ committee on COVID.
