COVID-19: Union Minister lambasts Kerala Health Minister

Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 14 (PTI): Union Minister VMuraleedharan on Thursday alleged that Kerala Health MinisterK K Shailaja had failed in containing the spread of COVID-19and had instead been busy getting herself on the cover pageof fashion magazines.

Muraleedharan told reporters here that the Left DemocraticFront (LDF) government had failed in fighting the pandemicand wanted Chief Minister Vijayan to clarify who wasresponsible for the failure.

''Kerala is now a state reportingthe most number of casesin a single day. The Chief Minister and the Health Ministerhave misled the people and worsened the situation. Thesituation in five districts is worse,'' Muraleedharan said.

The Union Minister further said if the credit for successin COVID-19 prevention activities goes to the stategovernment, the Chief Minister should then clarify who wasresponsible for the present situation.

''Is it his fault or that of the Health Minister?In herhurry to be the face of fashion magazines, has the HealthMinister become unaware of the current situation?,'' the UnionMinister asked.

''Thoughthe state had claimed to have flattened the curvemonths ago, we had warned the government not to mislead thepeople by giving them over-confidence'', he said adding apropaganda had been spread across the worldsaying Kerala wasfighting the pandemic better.

''Many major media-houses have written articles praisingthe Health Minister for her wondrous powers. But, now all ofthem are silent. The Chief Minister and the Health Ministershould make it clear on what index they are repeating thatKerala is number-one in fighting the pandemic,'' Muraleedharansaid.

Also, he said the state government had worsened thesituation by opening cinema halls.

However, while speaking to PTI on January8, Shailaja hadsaid it was meaningless to say Kerala's situation is worse.

She had said the state managed to maintain a low fatalityrate even as it was in a vulnerable position with highpopulation density, high number of old-age population and themost number of diabetics.

''The rise in the number of cases is due to a robustsurveillance and reporting system. We managed to delay thepeak of the pandemic and upgraded the threshold of our healthsystem,'' she had said.

''Our ultimate aim is to save the lives of the people andreduce the mortality rate. Even with this high number ofcases, we managed to reduce the death rate,'' Minister hadsaid.

With three more UK returnees to Kerala testing positivefor the new variant of COVID-19, nine persons have so farbeen infected with the strain in the state.

The state on Thursday reported 5,490 COVID-19 cases while4,337 have been cured of the infection, taking the totalcaseload to 8,31,259 and recoveries to 7,61,154.

The active cases touched 66,503.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)