Kerala Health Minister KK Shailaja has come down heavily on the opposition for organizing protests that could have led to the soaring number COVID-19 cases in the state. “If the virus is spread more, there is no doubt that the death toll will also become high. It will mostly fatally affect the elderly and those who have comorbidities,” she told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram.
The state saw a spike in the number of cases from 5,376 on Wednesday to 6,324 cases on Thursday.
“That is why it has been urged to sternly check the transmission of the disease. It’s true that we can’t go for a total lockdown. Work should be done, but by keeping physical distancing. But that shouldn’t be taken as an opportunity to create all kinds of crowds. What the opposition doing here is a big crime, something that weakens the government’s COVID-containing activity to save people,” she said.
“80% of the people gathering followed the regulations of the Health Department, but a few didn’t follow that and gathered together. The result of this is that the COVID-19 cases hiked two weeks after Onam. Now with the protests, the number of cases has been soaring; it has jumped from 5,000 to 6,000,” she added.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has also been slamming the opposition for organizing protests without following COVID-19 protocols, saying “it would end up transmitting the disease”.
“This will go on rising if everyone acts like this. The saddest thing is that a young leader of the Kerala Students Union (KSU) got tested for COVID-19 under a false identity. What a precarious thing to do. What was the purpose of giving a false identity, to hide if he was tested positive? If everyone attempts to hide like that what would be the situation in the state? That would lead to rampant transmission of the disease and the death of elderly people, no? There is no point in hiding it. This is a pandemic,” KK Shailaja said.
The KSU State President has been booked for allegedly being tested for COVID-19 under a false identity.
“Those who got infected should recover and try not to transmit the disease to others, instead of testing under false identities and trying to hide. These things can’t be accepted; this is something we can never expect from educated people and society in general,” the minister said.