Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said that the government will not discharge any COVID-19 patient from the hospital unless he/she tests negative.
He claimed here on Wednesday that in other States, COVID-19 patients were being discharged 10 days after admission, if the symptoms subsided, after recording them as having recovered from the disease. In the initial days of the epidemic, Kerala used to test a patient several times and did not discharge him/her till two or three tests returned negative.
Mr. Vijayan claimed that this was the reason the State’s recovery rate had remained lower than that of other States right from the beginning. However, as caseload went up, the discharge policy had to be revised. He was responding to a statement by Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala. Mr. Chennithala had pointed out that despite a revised discharge policy which allowed a patient to be discharged after a single COVID-negative result, Kerala’s recovery rate was low.
Mr. Vijayan claimed that neither the WHO nor the ICMR had ever said that Kerala’s COVID-19 testing was inadequate. He said the State figured amongst the top States when it came to the test per million by case per million ratio and test positivity rate.
COVID-19 treatment expenses were borne entirely by the government and everyone was given free treatment, he said.
