Amid surging COVID-19 cases, Kerala CM advises people to follow health care protocol

 As the single day surge in COVID-19 cases reached an all-time-high on Saturday, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that October-November months are crucial as cases may rise and cautioned people tostrictly follow the health care protocol to reduce the death rate.

Vijayan said daily cases have gone above 10,000 per day andasked people to strictly follow the health protocol.

Kerala on Saturday reported 11,755 fresh infections and 23 new fatalities, taking the caseload to 2,77,855 and death toll to 978.

October and November months are crucial for the COVID-19 mitigation process as we need to effectively fight the pandemic during this time so as to reduce the fatality rate.Despite the increase in the number of tests, the test positivity rate remains above 10 per cent indicating that the number of cases will continue to rise,Vijayan told reporters.

He said the health department has been relentlessly working for the past eight months fighting the pandemic and sought necessary support for the health workers.Vijayan said the case fatality rate in the state was 0.77 per cent in May, but it was brought down to 0.37 per cent in September.

"We had equipped the state health departmentto cater to requirements in case of a spike in the cases and the result of that effort can be seen in the reduced fatality rate," Vijayan said.

Kerala Social Security Mission Director Dr Mohammed Asheel told PTI thatthe state successfully delayedthe peak spike in COVID-19 cases and in the meantime increased the threshold of the health sector to reduce the fatality rate.Case fatality rate is deaths per 100 cases. In the month of May, it was 0.77 per cent. The challenge was to reduce the case fatality rate even if the cases raise exponentially.When the cases increase beyond the system capacity, the death rate will increase. Now it's0.36 per cent. We have decreased the case fatality rate because we were able to increase the threshold in the health sector," Asheel said.

The Chief Minister said at least 18,957 people have registered to join the COVID brigade that was formed to assistthe health workers.

In the Covid brigade, 9,325 have joined from the medical field out of which 543 are MBBS doctors. We need the service of more doctors in the state and request them to join the brigade, Vijayan said.

He said the health protocol including washing of hands and use of sanitiser along with masks and social distancing is a must to contain the spread of the virus.

According to medical experts, the virus may remain on human skin for over nine hours,he said.

Shops, voluntary organisations, resident associations etc should continue to arrange necessary facilities for the public to wash hands in order to carry forward the 'Break the chain' campaign,Vijayan said.

He hit out at those who refuse to wear the masks despite the pandemic threat.He also cautioned people not to take the disease lightly and said there are reports of at least ten per cent of those cured having other "serious difficulties." 

(IMAGE CREDITS:PTI)