As Kerala continues to record the highest number of cases in the country, the body of government doctors in Kerala on Tuesday urged the state government to strictly implement the Covid measures, including a 17-day quarantine for infected persons and meticulous contact tracing. In addition to this, the Kerala Government Medical Officers’ Association (KGMOA) also submitted to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan that restrictions should be imposed in specific micro-containment zones to control the spread of the virus.
KGMOA said the present lockdown strategy should be discontinued taking into account the socio-economic factors and considering the fact that COVID curve is now in a plateau phase and immunity acquired by almost 55 per cent of state’s population. The association also said that the restrictions should be imposed in specific micro containment zones like wards, rather than the whole panchayat/municipality/corporation. The suggestions from the prominent doctors’ body came as the southern state, which accounts for more than half of India’s new COVID-19 cases, is struggling to contain the spread of coronavirus infections. It said a hassle-free and effective vaccination is the best tool for containing this pandemic. Present strategy of categorising areas based on TPR alone should be replaced by indicators like Daily Positive Cases per 10,000, Active cases per 10000 along with TPR.
Also setting targets and criteria for testing to reduce TPR should be avoided.
