BJP takes a dig at 'Kerala model' amid alarming surge in COVID cases in two months
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A day after Kerala registered the highest single-day spike in COVID-19 cases in two months with a test positivity rate (TPR) of 12.35 per cent, the BJP has hit out at the Chief Minister blaming Eid relaxations as a major cause of the spike.
Noting that the state's latest daily tally of over 22,000 cases is more than half of the country, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said the Left government there went ahead with relaxations for the festival despite the Supreme Court expressing its displeasure over it.
Addressing a press conference, Patra said states like Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh followed the apex court's directions to call off 'Kanwar Yatra' but the Kerala government did not pay heed to it on Eid-ul-Adha.
"Who is responsible for that? Kerala has today reported the maximum number of cases since May 29. It once appeared that things were getting under the control. The Kerala government has made some mistake," he said on Wednesday as per media reports.
On the other hand, BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya stated that Muslim-majority areas such as the Malappuram district had clocked over 4000 cases in a day. Blaming it on the relaxations announced by the CPI-M government for Eid, Malviya said that the 'silence of secularists was deafening.'
Kerala reported 22,056 new confirmed cases of infection on Wednesday, along with 131 more Covid-related deaths. According to the MoHFW dashboard, Kerala accounts for 1,45,876 of the total 3,99,436 active cases in the country as of July 28.
Some of the worst affected districts in the state are Malappuram (3931), Thrissur (3005), Kozhikode (2400), Ernakulam (2397), Palakkad (1649), Kollam (1462), Alappuzha (1461), Kannur (1179), Thiruvananthapuram (1101) and Kottayam (1067).
Meanwhile, new data by the Union government showed on Wednesday that Kerala has had the lowest exposure to Sars-Cov-2, according to true infection estimates based on serological studies, with only 44% of the population projected to have been infected till early July compared to nearly 67% across the country as a whole.