'COVID-19 severity decreasing in Kerala'

Despite a high number of daily positive cases, Kerala Health Minister Veena George on Wednesday said the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic was decreasing in the state.

The number of patients seeking treatment at hospitals and those needing ICU support has dwindled, she said during the Question Hour session in the Assembly.

”The hospital occupancy and ICU occupancy have decreased in the state now-a–days. That means, the severity of the disease is decreasing,” George pointed out.

The Health Minister also said the department is now assessing the impact of ‘break-through infection’ and ‘reinfection’ among people.

”We are examining whether people are experiencing vaccine breakthrough infection ( a COVID case that occurs in someone who is fully vaccinated) and reinfection ( a person, who was infected and recovered, is infected again),” she said.

As per a recent survey conducted by the Health Department, the reinfection rate has decreased remarkably.

However, vaccine breakthrough infection is happening in the state, she said, quoting the survey.

Rejecting opposition criticism, George told the House that if a person died of COVID-19, it would be recorded as such.

The instances of people, who died of the virus infection but excluded from the list of COVID deaths somehow, would be examined, she said, adding that no comparison had been made so far between the pandemic death figures of the Health and Local Self Government Departments.

The southern state, on Tuesday, reported 23,676 fresh COVID cases pushing the total infection caseload to 34,49,149, with the number of people succumbing to the virus rising to 17,103 after 148 more deaths.