‘Planned campaign against Kerala over Covid-19’, claims Health Minister; 5 more Zika cases reported in state

Kerala Health Minister Veena George on Thursday claimed that there is a planned against the state over its Covid-19 management, referring to the criticism surrounding the increasing caseload despite the daily spike slowing down in other parts of the country.

“There’s a planned campaign against Kerala. All experts in different states say that we have a very good defence mechanism. Seroprevalence study by ICMR shows that almost 42% of people have antibodies in them, shows that our preventive mechanism was very good,” the Kerala Health Minister said.

Kerala reported more than 22,000 new infections for the third day in a row on Thursday, even as a team from the central government is set to reach the state to aid it in the effective management of the situation.

George said that the state is focused on increasing testing in order to trace every positive case in Kerala.

“We are conducting maximum tests these days. Yesterday, we conducted over 1.96 lakh tests, and today we did more than 1.63 lakh tests. So, we are trying to do more tests. We want to identify every single positive case. We want to trace all positive cases because we want to reduce the cases and also want to make sure that there is no third wave. We want to bring the situation under control, so we are doing the maximum number of tests, that’s why positive cases are more these days,” she said.

She said that at present, more than 50% of the total population of the state is still unaffected from the deadly virus.

“The type of coronavirus which is spreading in this phase is Delta virus…the infectability is more. So, naturally, we are trying our best,” the Health Minister said.

Opposition leader VD Satheesan criticised the state’s management protocols and said that the state is imposing “unscientific restrictions”.

“We have to change the restriction procedures. The state government is imposing an unscientific restriction across the state. Shops should be allowed to open all 7 days instead of one day to manage the crowd,” Satheesan claimed.

Additionally, George informed that the state recorded 5 more Zika virus cases on Thursday, taking the total number of cases to 61 in Kerala; There are currently 7 active Zika cases in the state.