2nd wave may continue till Kerala curbs its cases, says government
NEW DELHI : The high number of new Covid-19 infections in Kerala, which continues to account for 70% of all new cases in India, shows that the second Covid-19 wave is still far from over in the country, and is likely to continue till the southern state does not control virus transmission, health ministry officials said on Thursday.
According to government data, there were 47,092 new cases of Covid-19 detected in the country on Wednesday – the highest in a single day in at least two months. Of these, 32,803 (close to 70%) were reported in Kerala alone.
Wednesday’s jump in national tally, however, appears to be entirely caused by the surge in numbers from Kerala, data shows. A similar jump was seen across the country on August 27, when the national tally jumped to 46,808 after the southern state reported 32,801 new cases. In fact, if Kerala’s numbers are removed from the national tally, the overall outbreak in the rest of the country continues to show a contraction – the seven-day average of new cases in the rest of India has dropped to 13,218, the lowest since March 5, or 180 days ago, according to HT’s dashboard.
On Thursday, 45,624 new cases were reported from the country, of which 32,097 were from Kerala.
“There is an increase in new cases and … last week’s numbers show 69% of the new cases were reported from Kerala alone,” said Rajesh Bhushan, Union health secretary, during health ministry’s briefing on Covid-19 updates on Thursday.
At least 11 districts in Kerala – Malappuram, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Kozhikode, Palakkad, Kollam, Kannur, Kasaragod, Wayanad, Pathanamthitta, and Idukki – are of concern at the moment, officials said.
“We have not seen the conclusion in the second surge in the country. So, that is something we must keep in mind always to be able to strictly follow Covid-19 appropriate behaviour, and to overcome vaccine hesitancy that we still see in a section of country’s population,” added Bhushan.
The genome sequencing of samples from the state has found Delta variant comprises nearly 80% of the infections.
The Centre has rushed several teams of public health experts to Kerala to review situation on ground, and Union minister for health and family welfare, Mansukh Mandaviya, also visited Kerala last month to take stock of measures.
The central teams found a few gaps that attribute rising cases in Kerala. Divulging the feedback of central teams, National Centre for Disease Control, director, Sujeet K Singh, said contact tracing has been a weak point in the state.
“Contracting was abysmally low; we particularly observed that for every positive case, the state authorities were tracking 1.2 or 1.7 contacts, which effectively means not even two contacts were being traced per case. This is a big lacunae as it is extremely low even if we consider family members as contacts,” said Singh.
Also, containment measures were not taken as per Centre’s guidelines, Singh said.
“The boundaries were not assigned based on the disease pattern but followed administrative criterion. Perimeter control and cordoning off the containment zone was not strict, and there were no buffer zones surrounding the containment zones as it is important to monitor trends in the buffer zone as well,” said Singh. Another factor impacting the rise in new cases is Covid fatigue being observed in local population. “That is what local administrators told our teams that local population was facing,” said Singh.
The Central government has allocated ₹267.35 crore to Kerala under Emergency Covid Response Package-II, to strengthen the state’s health infrastructure and effectively manage the pandemic.