Kerala Health Minister K.K.Shailaja Teacher, on Sunday, acknowledged that Tamil Nadu’s public health system was “good”. As for Kerala, it had prepared much earlier to combat COVID-19.
“The situation in Kerala is different from other parts of the world — we have many financial problems but because of the decentralisation, people-centric planning we have high Human Development Index (HDI) and effective public health system. It was also because of pre-preparedness and collective activity of the government (we succeeded),” she said during a virtual interaction with Makkal Needhi Maiam founder Kamal Haasan on the ‘New Normal’ in post-COVID-19 India.
“When we read WHO’s announcement that there is a potential virus in Wuhan on January 18, they didn’t identify the virus as SARS-COV – 2 or declare it as a pandemic. I called my secretary and discussed it with him. He said that we have to prepare for it. We anticipated that Malayali students studying in Wuhan would come back,” she said.
Mr. Haasan said that Kerala government could not have tackled the crisis well unless the government backed the Minister.
“You were not waiting for orders from anywhere. You had your own protocols. Unless there is total backing of the government, good job cannot be done,” Mr. Haasan said.
Ms. Shailaja said that she received similar backing from the government during the Nipah virus outbreak in 2018.
Speaking about how people need not think that contracting COVID-19 is a near certain death, Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan, founder and director, Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy in Washington, said: “Death due to Covid-19 is very rare. Since, we don’t have immunity, we are worrying. We have to take precaution – not just for us but to protect the elderly in our homes.”
Mr. Haasan said that television channels could consider broadcasting school education lessons to facilitate learning.
Psychiatrist Shalini stressed on the need for following safety protocols.
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