Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday said the COVID-19 pandemic was unlikely to abate any time soon.
“We are in for a marathon, not a 100-m dash. There is no immediate end in sight. The disease might test us to the limit of our endurance. We have to harness the mental strength and collective will to tide over the crisis. Kerala can’t afford to lose the fight against the scourge. Losing is not an option for us,” he said.
The Chief Minister indicated that the public should brace themselves for severe lockdowns interspersed with periods of relative loosening up of restrictions on normal life and retail trade as new clusters are identified and fresh flare-ups detected.
Targeted enforcement of the health protocol in critical containment areas and buffer zones would entail arrest and prosecution of violators of the provisions of the epidemic control Ordinance. He said the police would monitor markets, shops, and allow no cross-border travel. Civic bodies would cancel the permit of traders who did not adhere to government directives. Kerala was still on the top of the race against the outbreak. It had a meagre case fatality rate and the health-care system in the State was far from being overwhelmed.
Mr. Vijayan said that those who test positive in rapid antigen tests and were asymptomatic would also have to move to first-line treatment centres, as asymptomatics could still spread the infection.
More testing facilities
Testing facilities were being augmented and currently the government had 59 testing centres whereas the private sector had 51, with various diagnostic modalities. Many private hospitals had already started taking in COVID patients. COVID patients can be referred there by government doctors and people can also walk in and demand care, he added.
Mr. Vijayan said there was no lack of vigilance in the conduct of KEAM tests. An estimated 88,000 students appeared for the examinations. Only a few in one location had tested positive afterwards. It was unlikely that they had caught the infection from the examination centre.
Flays Opposition
He said Opposition parties made no creative contribution to the fight against coronavirus. On the contrary, they tried to aggravate the situation by forsaking physical distancing and recklessly organising protests and assemblies. “Who were they (the Opposition) challenging? The High Court or COVID-19?” he asked. Mr. Vijayan said the attempts of the Opposition to tar and feather the government by attempting to link the Chief Minister’s Office to the gold smuggling case had failed.
The government has nothing to do with the crime. But, the Opposition tried to propagate the lie that the government was somehow responsible. He asked them to shed their “political deviousness” and join the main social stream to fight the scourge. “There is a time for politics. But it’s not now. The priority is to preserve lives and survive the plague.”
