Explained: What is driving the spike in Kerala's Covid-19 cases?

While most of the states of India are showing a significant drop in the number of positive Covid-19 cases, Kerala has been reporting 11,000 to 13,000 cases daily.

Kerala has accounted for more than one-third of the country’s total Covid-19 cases in the past three days -- 14,373 on July 6, 15,600 on July 7, and 13,772 on July 8. Its contribution to the total numbers started increasing when the overall numbers started to drop.

Kerala had shown a similar trend in January, when it accounted for almost 60 per cent of the country’s total cases. Even during the first wave, Kerala’s contribution had been high.

As of now, over 30 lakh people in Kerala have been infected with coronavirus. Kerala stands right behind Maharashtra, which has recorded the highest number of Covid-19 positive cases in the country.

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However, Maharashtra has a larger population than Kerala. So, the total number of cases recorded compared to Kerala’s smaller population seems concerning. The average Covid-19 positive cases in the country is 24,000, whereas Kerala has recorded more than 90,000 confirmed cases per million people.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, although Kerala has been having a high rate of Covid-19 cases in the state, it has still managed to make headlines about its low fatality rate. However, Kerala has a fatality rate of 0.47 against the country average of 1.32 is probably because of the larger positive cases, according to an Indian Express report.

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It further explains that Kerala’s high Covid-19 positive numbers are due to better reporting. IT certainly doesn’t explain the rapidly increasing numbers.

In every 100 tests the state conducts, 13 come out positive. While Kerala has been ahead of other states in vaccinating its people, that certainly hasn’t helped the state much,

As of now, 45 per cent of Kerala’s population has received the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine and almost 10 per cent are fully vaccinated.