What바카라s behind the Covid spike in Kerala? Delta coming to the least seropositive state. Targeted, strategic testing that uncovers cases the best. And the least under-reporting.
A year-and-a-half after Kerala hit the national headlines when it detected India바카라s first Covid-19 case on January 30, 2020바카라a student who had returned from China바카라s Wuhan바카라the state is once again in the spotlight. This time, it has recorded the maximum number of new cases in the country over several weeks바카라at a time when the pandemic second wave is reportedly ebbing in other states.
What drew eyeballs in the last week of July is that Kerala reported more than 20,000 new infections for five days in a row, accounting for over half the national figures. This expectedly acquired political colour after BJP leaders blamed the Pinarayi Vijayan government바카라s three-day easing of curbs during Bakr Eid for the spike. It also put a question mark on the state바카라s much-vaunted Covid model.
Experts say such narratives are unfounded. 바카라I don바카라t think the model has gone wrong,바카라 says virologist Dr Shahid Jameel, former head of the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortia (INSACOG). 바카라Instead of having huge spikes, Kerala바카라s cases are more spread over time. What is happening now is that the Delta variant is so infectious, whoever was unexposed earlier is now getting exposed.바카라
Data from ICMR바카라s fourth serosurvey, released last week, shows only 44 per cent of the state바카라s population has so far been exposed to the virus, against a national average of over 67 per cent. Compare these with Madhya Pradesh, which recorded 79 per cent seropositivity.
Another area of concern is Kerala바카라s high test positivity rate (TPR), which hovers around 11 per cent, compared to the national average of 2 per cent. But Dr Jameel says Kerala바카라s TPR hasn바카라t undergone much change during the first two waves. 바카라It has remained between 11 and 12 per cent, indicating that as the case numbers rise, so does the number of tests carried out by the state,바카라 he says.
Experts say Kerala바카라s high numbers can be attributed to a combination of factors, such as its better record at reporting cases and its policy of strategic testing. This is corroborated by the ICMR report, which shows that Kerala underreported the number of infections the least (one in six cases), while states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh topped the list by factors of 134 and 100 respectively.
Despite the highly transmissible Delta variant, the state has been efficient in detecting cases, says epidemiologist Jayaprakash Muliyil, chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee at National Institute of Epidemiology. 바카라Case detection in Kerala is higher than most states, in some of which, unknown cases are 40 times the recorded ones,바카라 he adds.
Dr T.S. Anish, a member of Kerala바카라s expert committee on Covid-19, says the state managed to prevent at least 20 per cent infections by delaying the second wave. Muliyil attributed this to Kerala바카라s conservative approach of 바카라bending the curve바카라. 바카라As a result, the epidemic gets prolonged and mortality is low,바카라 he adds. Kerala currently has a fatality rate of 0.5 per cent, while the national average is 1.3 per cent, say experts.
With a large fraction of the population still susceptible, Kerala needs to tread cautiously as a third wave is looming large, says Dr Jameel, urging the state to accelerate its pace of vaccination. But with Kerala바카라s major festival Onam due on August 23, balancing political compulsions while managing Covid will be a huge challenge for the CPI(M) government.
(This appeared in the print edition as "On Different Wavelengths")