The Centre on Thursday reviewed the steps taken by the Kerala government to stop the spread of coronavirus infections. The Union Ministry of Health has said that the steady surge is a cause for concern.

On Thursday evening, Kerala reported 30,007 cases of Covid-19, accounting for 67% of the 44,658 infections reported across India. The positivity rate stood at 18.03%, according to ANI. With 162 deaths, the state’s toll now stands at 20,134, while there are 1,81,209 active cases.

The previous day, Kerala reported 31,445 cases. It was the first instance since May 20 when the state logged more than 30,000 infections.

The number of infections in Kerala did not rapidly decrease after the second wave in April-May. In fact, for over a month, Kerala has been reporting the highest number of cases among all states. But most of these were either mild or asymptomatic infections and did not need hospitalisation.

However, the new surge, called the “Onam spike”, has worried experts.

“The second surge has not yet concluded,” Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said earlier this week, while noting that the state has seen an increase in cases since Onam, which was celebrated on August 21. “We have to maintain all necessary precautions, particularly in light of our experience that after every festival we see a spike.”

On Thursday, Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla conducted an online review meeting with senior health officials from Kerala and Maharashtra, which are the two states reporting most Covid cases every day.

Bhalla observed that more efforts would be required to stop the increase in infections, the Centre said. “This would require adequate intervention in geographical areas having higher infection, through measures such as contact tracing, vaccination drives and Covid-appropriate behavior,” the government said in a statement.

He also suggested that the state government increase testing and explore the possibility of placing night curfew in areas of high positivity. “Focus should be placed on the next few months to suppress the levels of transmission of the virus so that the chain of transmission can be controlled effectively,” the statement added.

The Centre has warned that September and October would be crucial in the management of the coronavirus pandemic.

Home quarantine norms violated: Kerala health minister

Following the Centre’s review, Kerala Health Minister Veena George blamed the violation of home quarantine rules for the rise in cases, PTI reported. She requested citizens who were under home quarantine not to step out of their rooms and urged their families to wear masks to prevent indoor transmission.

She also dismissed the claims of lack of intensive care unit beds and ventilators at hospitals, ANI reported. “There are a lot of worrying campaigns going on,” the health minister said in a statement.

She said that besides government hospitals, Covid treatment was also available in 281 empanelled private hospitals free of cost. “If ICUs in government hospitals are not available, there is a facility to shift patients to private hospitals with ventilator facilities for treatment,” George added. “Therefore there is no need to worry.”

Opposition criticises Kerala’s lapses

Opposition parties in Kerala criticised the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic government for the health crisis.

Union Minister of State for External Affairs and Parliamentary Affairs V Muraleedharan said that Kerala faltered on contact tracing, according to NDTV. “It needs to trace 30 contacts for every positive case but is actually doing only 1.5,” he claimed. “It relaxed Covid-19 restrictions for political reasons, while it should have followed scientific advice.”

But, Dr TS Anish, a member of Kerala’s expert panel on Covid-19, said that contact tracing had limitations as the Delta variant has a short incubation period. “That means as soon as a person in a family tests positive, if you test the other family members, they are also found to be positive,” he said. “Very rapidly family clusters are formed.”

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor participated in a demonstration in Thiruvananthapuram to protest against Vijayan’s government. “This is a symbolic protest to show that Kerala is in ICU and before it gets carried away in an ambulance, the government needs to take action,” he said.

Public health expert SS Lal, who had contested the 2021 Assembly election on a Congress ticket, asked the government to release health data to evaluate the actual situation, PTI reported.

“The government is hiding all data related to Covid-19,” he said. “We are unable to analyse the actual Covid situation in the state due to unavailability of the data. If we are able to access it, we can figure out basics like which age group is affected and so on.”