COVID-19 transmission in the community has become intense in the State, following a global pattern with supermarkets, trading centres, and even hospitals becoming amplifying zones of infection.
While the Health Department has identified 84 COVID clusters across the State, disease transmission could be happening silently in other parts of the State, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said here on Thursday. All public places where people are likely to gather in large numbers should be considered as high-risk zones and every other person, a potential source of COVID-19.
He said in this stage, all-out efforts would be made to keep mortality down. The State could keep down the number of COVID deaths per million at less than one. However, given the high density of population, as disease transmission goes up, mortality too would and, hence, there should be no let-up in guard.
He said with the case numbers swelling, COVID containment should now emerge as a huge people’s movement, with local-self governments taking the lead to create first-line treatment facilities in every panchayat.
Mr. Vijayan said the involvement of the private health sector was being sought actively by the government and that all small and medium private hospitals could become first-line treatment centres.
He urged the public to maintain physical distancing on Karkidaka Vavu day on Monday. He said lakhs of devotees offered “Vavu Bali” on the religiously important day. However, large crowds increased the risk of mass spread of coronavirus multi-fold. Mr Vijayan urged the people to restrain themselves from congregating voluntarily.
Mr. Vijayan said only modern medicine was effective against COVID-19. People should desist from treating the disease via traditional streams of medicine.
