THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Health minister Veena George on Friday defended the state government’s Covid containment strategy that has drawn flak from the Opposition for aiding the CPM to complete party meets at Thrissur and Kasaragod. Terming the new strategy as “more scientific”, the minister said the earlier one based on test positivity rate (TPR) was discarded based on the experiences gained from the first two waves.
“The government wanted to avoid lockdown that paralyses the normal life. We have improved the vaccination coverage. As a result, the number of people admitted to hospitals is less even when daily Covid cases are rising.” Veena alleged that the containment strategy was politicised by opposition.
As per a January 14 decision, no public programmes were allowed if the TPR of the district was above 30 per cent. Kasaragod collector Bhandari Swagat Ranveerchand even issued an order banning public functions as the district had a TPR above 36 per cent.
However, a Covid review meeting chaired by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday evening classified districts into three (A, B and C) on the basis of severity of Covid in each district. As per the new decision, Kasaragod did not attract stringent restrictions and the district collector revoked the order banning public functions.
Veena said that Thrissur was not included in any of the categories as the number of Covid patients in beds and ICU was less. As on Thursday, Thrissur and Kasaragod had 614 and 230 Covid patients admitted in hospitals respectively. The numbers are well within the capacity of the health system in the districts.