Kerala has porous borders, a large number of migrant workers, and a vast population of expatriates who tend to move back and forth and whose remittances oil the state's economy.
The state recorded three deaths more than two months after the pandemic outbreak and more than 370 confirmed cases of the infection. About 100,000 people live in solitary confinement, at home or in designated facilities.
Many assume that Kerala flattened the curve at a time when the infection is on the rise in India. First, Kerala started from a solid base line. The social growth serves as an example of what human capital investments can do to reduce poverty and prosperity. It has considerably higher rates of literacy and better health results than the rest of India; the state has long been a stronghold of the Communist Party, though its policies remain moderately Social Democratic.
Some of its strengths are also weaknesses: skilled workers are the main export of the state – it receives more remittances from abroad than anywhere else in India, most of which originates from the Middle East – and it is a major hub of tourism. There are two factors that expose its inhabitants to a higher transmission risk.
The first three confirmed patients in Kerala were Indian students living in Wuhan who had returned home in the New Year of China. However, as expected, a high number of infections were seen in the state during the following weeks and the reported number of cases rose to more than 100 by 24 March. Until then, Kerala had one-fifth of Indian cases, despite only having 2.5 percent of India's population.
The reason Kerala has managed to get out of the other side so soon is due to its strong public health network, consistent risk communication and community engagement. In reality, given its communist rule, the health-care system of Kerala is highly privatized, with a healthy division of labor between the public and private sectors. This very decentralized network has in recent years been able to withstand the test of two major floods and another viral epidemic, also making good use of the public's voluntary and active participation.
As early as January Kerala's attempts to tackle the pandemic had begun. Indeed, her experience of coping with the 2018 Nipah epidemic, a virus that was inaccessible for any medication or vaccine, was helpful. Learning from this incident, which saw a high proportion of hospital-acquired infections, the program had appropriate procedures in place and adhered to the time-tested technique of case isolation and touch tracking in combination with an warning group monitoring system. This time, hundreds of thousands of people were in home quarantine, with enforcement made possible by a combination of phone-based monitoring and community watch programs.
The state recorded three deaths more than two months after the pandemic outbreak and more than 370 confirmed cases of the infection. About 100,000 people live in solitary confinement, at home or in designated facilities.
Some of its strengths are also weaknesses: skilled workers are the main export of the state – it receives more remittances from abroad than anywhere else in India, most of which originates from the Middle East – and it is a major hub of tourism. There are two factors that expose its inhabitants to a higher transmission risk.
The reason Kerala has managed to get out of the other side so soon is due to its strong public health network, consistent risk communication and community engagement. In reality, given its communist rule, the health-care system of Kerala is highly privatized, with a healthy division of labor between the public and private sectors. This very decentralized network has in recent years been able to withstand the test of two major floods and another viral epidemic, also making good use of the public's voluntary and active participation.
As early as January Kerala's attempts to tackle the pandemic had begun. Indeed, her experience of coping with the 2018 Nipah epidemic, a virus that was inaccessible for any medication or vaccine, was helpful. Learning from this incident, which saw a high proportion of hospital-acquired infections, the program had appropriate procedures in place and adhered to the time-tested technique of case isolation and touch tracking in combination with an warning group monitoring system. This time, hundreds of thousands of people were in home quarantine, with enforcement made possible by a combination of phone-based monitoring and community watch programs.