Kerala Congress chief slams Pinarayi Vijayan govt for 'failure in tackling COVID-19 surge'

Amid surging cases of COVID-19 in Kerala, concerns over the spread of the virus are growing louder. Slamming the Kerala government over their inability to mitigate the surging COVID-19 cases, Kerala Congress Chief, PT Thomas recently claimed that the state administration has failed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Day by day, Covid cases are increasing in Kerala. Yesterday, more than 31,000 cases were reported and India reports about 50,000 if we look at stats, that's more than 50 per cent of Covid cases coming from Kerala. Earlier the government claimed that it was doing well and taking action. But now, the real picture is out and it shows that it is an utter failure of the state government in tackling COVID 19," Thomas said on Thursday. 

"A serious intervention is needed from the State and Centre. Otherwise, the cases will increase. People are in a panic. Immediate and time-bound action is needed from the state government. We need to overcome this situation," PT Thomas added.

V Muraleedharan on Kerala's COVID-19 situation

Earlier on Thursday, Minister of State for External Affairs of India V Muraleedharan said that Kerala has maintained a good health infrastructure for several years, he noted that the current catastrophic situation shows the "inefficiency and incapacity" of the state government. He further talked about the measures taken by the state government as per the guidelines set up by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). He said that the state must follow the testing mechanism as suggested by the ICMR as testing numbers are very less in the state and there is a need to give more attention to controlling the spread of the virus. 

Kerala sees spike in COVID-19 cases

Kerala has been leading the charts with maximum number of COVID-19 cases in the last couple of weeks. The state has recorded a nearly 30 per cent hike in cases in the last 24 hours itself. The state government has witnessed a spike due to the annual festival, Onam. As per the latest report, Kerala has recorded 31,445 fresh coronavirus cases on Wednesday, taking the total infection count in the state to 38,83,429.  Over the past few weeks, several districts from Kerala have been contributing to the national caseload. Despite restrictions and lockdown imposed by the state government, the numbers are quite alarming. Talking about its vaccination programme, the Kerala government said 59.55 lakh total vaccine doses have been administered till Wednesday. 

With inputs from ANI

Image: ANI/ Pixabay