- The daily caseload of the coronavirus infection in Kerala often reaches more than 50% of entire Covid cases in India
- Kerala’s weekly positivity rate remains at 14-19 per cent and, it is bound to spill over to its neighbouring states
- Karnataka has already announced seven-day mandatory institutional quarantine for those arriving from Kerala
- The Kerela government miserably failed to prevent the state from the pandemic, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan needs to take responsibility for all the loss
While every other state in India is efficiently combating the second wave of Covid-19, the rate of infection and fatalities is gradually increasing in communist-ruled Kerela. In Kerala, the daily caseload of the coronavirus infection often reaches more than 50% of entire Covid cases in India. Poorly affected by the pandemic and economic crisis due to the lockdown, people have no other choice but to push themselves to commit suicide.
Read more: While Kerala was a decelerator in India’s post COVID growth, UP was clearly the accelerator
Earlier this week, Union Health Ministry sources emphasising the importance of “smart and strategic lockdown,” suggested the state step up measures to curb the daily surge. Officials also asserted that the neighbouring states are getting impacted because Kerela is not implying the Centre’s advice for combating the COVID-19 pandemic.
Officials had also stressed that the coastal state, Kerala’s weekly COVID infection positivity rate remains at 14-19 per cent and, it is bound to spill over to its neighbouring states. To prevent Covid cases in the state, Karnataka has already announced seven-day mandatory institutional quarantine for those arriving from Kerala.
Earlier this week, in an attempt to prevent the new covid cases, a 10 pm- 6 am night curfew was imposed in Kerela. TFI had also reported that the economy of Kerala has suffered a loss of Rs 1,56,041 crore of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) in 2020-21 concerning Budget Estimate 2020-21.
Thus, with restrictions on economic activity that further leads to crippling debt, the decline in wages and employment, people are opting to take the extreme step and commit suicide.
For an instance, Vinod, who used to run a bakery in Irumpupalam in Idukki district without informing his family, drove to his bakery to pull the shutter down and hang himself. His family testified to the police that financial liabilities due to Covid-19 led him to commit suicide. Akhil, his son, said, “I could figure out that he was quite tense and disturbed at that time. A couple of times we had to take him to the hospital as his blood pressure shot up and down. He had borrowed a lot of money from private lenders and the interest kept soaring. When I asked him whom to pay, he didn’t say anything.”
As the pandemic has negatively impacted the health sector and the local economy, cases of people committing suicides have been on a swell over the last three months in Kerela. From light and sound shop owner Ponnumani in Palakkad, cardamom farmer Santhosh in Idukki to goldsmith Manoj, his wife and daughter in Thiruvananthapuram, multiple cases of people committing suicide have been reported in the state.
However, the Kerela government miserably failed to prevent the state from the pandemic, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan needs to take responsibility for all the loss. The Vijayan Government should learn effective and visionary leadership from other states to combat the deadly pandemic as soon as possible.