KOCHI: In Ernakulam district, the health department has succeeded in containing the spread of Covid to a certain extent, Industries Minister P Rajeeve said here on Sunday.
Speaking after a review meeting to assess the Covid situation in Ernakulam, the minister said there is only one panchayat left in the district which has a test positivity rate above 50%.
“In that particular panchayat, the facility to conduct mobile Covid testing will be launched. Lockdown has helped bring down the TPR in most of the local bodies in the district. Lockdown and stringent measures will be continued in all panchayats which have a TPR above 25 %. Before lockdown, the situation in the district was alarming with the TPR increasing to 35%. Now, we have succeeded in bringing down the TPR to 24%. We aim to bring it down further to 10%,” he said.
Rajeeve said the combined effort of all departments has helped keep the mortality rate low in the district.
“The current death rate is 0.2 % in Ernakulam. In most of the panchayats, primary health centres and Covid First-line Treatment Centres are ready. An adequate number of oxygen beds, ventilator beds and ICUs have been arranged to meet any emergency,” said Rajeeve.
“The Covid control rooms are also functioning effectively. The district administration has succeeded in executing the Covid precautionary measures,” he said. The minister, who represents the Kalamassery constituency, chaired the review meeting held at the Covid-19 war room set up at the Integrated Control and Command Centre in Kochi Metro’s JLN Stadium station.
A busy day for industries minister
Kochi: Sunday was a busy day for Minister for Industries P Rajeeve. On his first visit to Ernakulam after swearing in as the minister, the CPM leader started the day by visiting his native place, Annamanada, Thrissur. He met his mother, who is at his ancestral Punnadath House. After spending nearly half an hour at his home, Rajeeve came back to Kochi.
After holding a brief meeting with LDF leaders at the CPM area committee office in Kalamssery, Rajeev visited Government Medical College Hospital, Kalamssery, for a function to hand oveygen concentrators donated by Hindalco using its CSR funds.
The concentrators were imported from overseas. He also inaugurated the rapid antigen testing centre at Kalamassery Municipality. Before attending the Covid review meeting, Rajeeve also visited writer M K Sanu and M Leelavathy. He left for the capital city by evening.