How Kerala Flattened The Curve

The southern state’s pandemic fighting skills and fabled healthcare system have helped it beat back COVID-19. What others can learn from its example

- Jeemon Jacob

On January 23, when Kerala’s health minister K.K. Shailaja chaired a high-level meeting of her department officials, worry lines had begun creasing her brow. China had announced a lockdown in Wuhan and other cities in Hubei province. Hundreds of students from Kerala were studying for professional courses in Wuhan, and there were fears they would carry the virus back to the state. The sprightly health minister, who had been at the forefront of the state’s battle against the Nipah virus in 2018, had the task of drafting the action plan against a possible novel coronavirus outbreak. Three medical students from the Wuhan Institute of Medical Sciences had returned to their homes in Alappuzha, Thrissur and Kasargod that day and were in home quarantine. A week later, on January 30, when one of the three became India’s ‘patient zero’, the state was prepared.

A control room had been set up on January 23 itself at the General Hospital premises in Thiruvananthapuram. The state machinery had its strategy in place to counter the spread of the infection, but there was every reason to worry.

Kerala is connected to the world in a way few other Indian states are. It has an expatriate population of 2.5 million people and four international airports servicing over 17 million passengers every year. A population density of 819 people per square kilometre makes it India’s eighth most densely populated state. But it also had two trump cards—a world-class healthcare system and experience in containing the 2018 outbreak of the lethal Nipah virus.