Kerala positivity rate not alarming: Epidemiologist
TRIVANDRUM: One of India’s best-known epidemiologists has said that the high incidence of COVID-19 in Kerala is not alarming as it reflects “sensible testing.”
Participating in the Professional Excellence Lecture Series of the Press Club Institute of Journalism here, Dr Jayaprakash Muiiyil also said “the Kerala mortality is manageable.”
“In areas where the spike was so swit, the disease fell fast,” he said, delivering his lecture on ‘The Pandemic: What Lies Ahead’.
“They also paid in terms of high mortality. Kerala mortality has been manageable because you all behaved reasonably well.” Dr Muliyil was among the epidemiologists who warned Kerala against the “premature celebrations” of “flatening the curve.”
Kerala health minister KK Shailaja became an instant media celebrity and one of them even called her a “virus slayer.”
Talking to the BBC in July last year when Kerala case numbers started rising fast, he quipped, “I remember saying that Kerala had achieved a viral miracle.”
“A disease highly infectious is very difficult to contain. It spreads person to person,” he said in his lecture to the journalism students and faculty members of the institute on Saturday.
“About 70 per cent or so people have already been infected by the ferocious way the Delta variant of the virus went on.”
“The only blessing is that the immunity we acquired is prety good and it’ll last longer. Infection is equal to immunisation. But it’s dangerous, you can lose your life!”
He pointed out the public health importance of coronavirus is only based on mortality reduction and there are no other parameters.
“At the end of it, people who’ll evaluate each state’s performance, if accurate estimates are available, will look at mortality,” he said.
“The algorithm that you follow in testing is what decides the percentage. Test the suspects. You are doing a good job because sensible testing will yield sensible results.”
Now Kerala leads other Indian states in the daily infections by far and at 115,706, it’s close behind the much larger Maharashtra (117,270) in the active caseload.
India’s first case of COVID-19 was reported in Kerala on Jan.30 2020 and 14,489 people have died from the disease as per the official data, which experts question.
The case fatality rate remains low at 0.47 per cent as against the national average of 1.32.