Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said here on Tuesday that the unusual situation in the State following the widespread dissemination of COVID-19 was akin to what the world had been through during the Spanish Flu and that every individual in the State had a huge responsibility to prevent history from repeating itself.
Everyone had an individual as well as collective responsibility as a society to ensure that they did not violate the COVID protocol, especially universal mask-wearing and physical distancing, which alone could check disease transmission, he said.
However, even when disease transmission was going up, people continued to violate these safety precautions. On Tuesday, there were 5,901 cases of violation of the mask rule, while cases had been registered against nine for violating quarantine norms.
Mr. Vijayan said what was more dangerous was the simultaneous propaganda that disease transmission had reached a level wherein nothing would hold it back and that there was no more meaning in any precautions.
He said this attitude was dangerous and that the COVID situation was still not out of control in the State. It was people’s vigil and strong disease containment measures which had prevented Kerala from the situation that the neighbouring States were up against.
Quoting an article in the New England Journal of Medicine , he said that till vaccines arrive, the only protection against COVID-19 was mask-wearing and creating a protective circle around oneself through strict physical distancing, avoiding crowding, and congregations in closed spaces.
