Covid scare: Kerala CM asks to use lessons learned in pandemic days
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Thiruvananthapuram: Asking Kerala to become cautious and alert once again, Chief Minister of the state Pinrayi Vijayan said that the lessons the state learned tackling the coronavirus in the past needed to be taken out and dusted.
Also, the country reported three cases of the Omicron subvariant BF.7, which has led to a massive surge in China as of Wednesday. Sources informed that the first and second cases of the variant were detected in October, while the third was in November.
CM Vijayan's statement came when several countries reported a fresh surge in cases, plus the crisis that arrived in China with cases running high, and the medical system got rattled. The Union government convened a high-level meeting today to roll out strategies to restrict a possible crisis in the country.
Vijayan said, "With the Centre pointing out the outbreak of the virus in a few countries, we are also going on a high alert, and the Health Minister here is meeting up with the rapid response team of the department. Hence, all the lessons that we learned tackling Covid in the past should now be put into practice again."
"The saving grace is Kerala at present is not reporting many fresh cases, but we must ensure that all precautions should be taken when Covid-like symptoms like cold and cough surface," he said.
The message of alert has significance since the state, along with the entire country, has gone back to conditions of the pre-Covid era as people stopped wearing masks and not following precautionary measures.
Earlier in the day, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said that the pandemic is not over yet, but "we are prepared to manage any situation". "In view of the rising cases of Covid19 in some countries, reviewed the situation with experts and officials today," he wrote on Twitter.
In a letter to states, the Health Ministry wrote, "In view of the sudden spurt of cases being witnessed in Japan, the US, South Korea, Brazil and China, it is essential to gear up the whole genome sequencing of positive case samples to track the variants through Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium network".