What Did Kerala Do Right In Its War Against Coronavirus Pandemic?

Coronavirus in Kerala: Clearly in the Kerala model of fighting the coronavirus pandemic so far, there is a success story worth emulating by other states. As on Friday night, Kerala reported only one coronavirus positive patient with 136 other active cases.

It would be pertinent to point out that the first three cases of COVID-19 positive were reported in Kerala when medical students from Wuhan arrived in the state. This was on January 30.

As on Friday night, the total number of positive cases of Coronavirus in Kerala is 395.

The question now being asked across the country is, what did Kerala do right in its battle against COVID-19? At a time when COVID-19 is showing an upward curve in states like Maharashtra, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, how did Kerala manage to flatten the curve, as it were?

For one thing, the state embarked on an aggressive strategy of testing tracing and isolation of Coronavirus suspects very early, leading to an effective containment strategy across all affected districts. With 11 out of 14 districts getting affected, the Kerala government put in place an effective containment strategy which has now paid off dividends.

In the worst affected district of Kasargod, a senior police official was quoted as saying that early on, the Kerala government had put in place an action plan of contact tracing and isolating. Over 100 barricades were placed within the district where only emergency traffic such as urgent health-related ones and essential commodities were allowed to proceed for treatment. This has been the pattern across the state with the administration working right down to the grassroots level to contain the deadly pandemic. Local health and community workers have also involved in the war again Coronavirus.

Stringent implementation of lockdown restrictions and an aggressive strategy of testing and quarantining patients and their family members also helped to contain the spread of the deadly pandemic in Kerala. The state placed those in isolation in a 28-day quarantine.

Kerala is now set to introduce plasma therapy. Trials are scheduled to commence shortly with regard to plasma therapy where in antibodies from those who have recovered from the virus will be infused in patients who have tested positive for COVID-19.

A lesson which all states now need to learn from Kerala is that the state focuses relatively more on healthcare down to the village level. This is perhaps one of the reasons why the state has been able to flatten the curve at this point, with the high rate of recovery and a low death rate from Coronavirus.