Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has tested negative for the coronavirus and will be discharged on April 14 at 3 pm. A medical report said that the 75-year-old CM, who was admitted at the Government Medical College in Kozhikode with COVID-19, on April 8, tested negative on Wednesday. CM Pinarayi was asymptomatic and had no complications.
The CM's last public interaction was on April 6 when he spoke to the media after casting his vote for the State Assembly election. His daughter Veena Vijayan had tested positive that day and came to cast her vote wearing a Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kit after 6 pm, when COVID-19 patients and those with symptoms of the disease were given an hour's time to vote.
The CM had also put out a post requesting everyone who had come in contact with him in recent days to go into self observation.
The same day that CM Pinarayi tested positive, senior Congress leader and former CM Oommen Chandy was also found positive for the coronavirus. He has been admitted at a private hospital in Thiruvananthapuram since then. The 77-year-old had campaigned extensively for the Congress ahead of the recent election. A report on Manorama Online earlier on Tuesday said that he is still at hospital but there is not much rest, since he is busy with election analysis and other work. Only difference is that there was no crowd around him like other times, said the report.
Pinarayi Vijayan received his first dose of COVID-19 vaccine on March 4 at the Thycaud Government Hospital in Thiruvananthapuram.
On Monday, Kerala reported 7,515 cases of COVID-19, taking the total number of active cases to 52,132. The positive cases come of testing 73,441 samples. At least 2,959 people tested negative on Monday, taking the total recoveries so far in the state to 11,23,133.