Kerala accounts for 51.5% of Covid-19 cases

Kerala accounted for 51.5% of country’s total Covid-19 cases reported in the last week and is the only state at present with more than one lakh active cases, according to health ministry data.

The state has been reporting an average test positivity rate of 10%, and in some areas this is in the 15-20% range. Eleven districts in Kerala have shown an increasing trend in average daily cases.

The number of daily average cases in the country on Tuesday was 28,204, with total active cases at 3,88,508. Kerala had 1,77,091 active cases, followed by Maharashtra with 74,941 cases and Karnataka with 23,956 cases.

The ‘R’ value, which indicates how fast the virus is spreading, was showing an increasing trend in Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab. While the country’s ‘R’ value was 1, the figure in these states was in the range of 1.1 and 1.3, which health ministry officials said was a cause for concern.

Dr SK Singh, director, National Centre for Disease Control, said a central team had visited Kerala to monitor the situation. With only 44% seroprevalence in Kerala, nearly 55% of the state’s population is still susceptible to the infection, Singh said. Nearly 90% of the cases were of the Delta variant.

As 80% of the patients in Kerala were in home isolation, the intra-home transmission was high in the state, leading to infections in clusters. Further, a higher proportion of the elderly and a 30% incidence of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, was aiding higher infection in the state, the central team’s ground report said.

As of Tuesday, the country has administered 51.45 crore vaccine doses — 40.02 crore first doses and 11.43 crore second doses. The Delta variant has affected the nation and also the world, with vaccination being the only way to control transmission and protect against severe disease and mortality, V K Paul, member, health, Niti Aayog, said at the health ministry briefing. This is not the time to lower the guard and people have to be vigilant, Paul said.

The country has crossed the 50-crore landmark in vaccination, and there will be four more vaccines available in the country soon, Paul said. The first of these would be the Zydus Cadila vaccine, followed by the Biological E vaccine and Serum-Novavax’s Covovax vaccine, and then the Gennova Biopharmaceuticals mRNA vaccine, Paul said.