Trace, Quarantine, Test, Isolate and Treat: A Kerala Model of Covid-19 Response

  1. KM Sulaiman
  2. T Muhammad
  3. Rishad Muhammad A P
  4. K Afsal

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Abstract

Kerala reported the first three cases of coronavirus in India in late January. Kerala, one of the India’s most densely populated states, which makes its success in fighting the Covid-19 all the more commendable. Moreover, an estimated 17% of its 35 million population employed or lives elsewhere, more than 1 million tourists visit each year, and hundreds of students study abroad, including in China. All of this mobility makes the state more vulnerable to contagious outbreaks. What is the strategy behind the success story? This paper compares the situation of COVID-19 pandemic in major states and Kerala by the different phase of lockdown, and also highlights Kerala’s fight against the pandemic. We used publicly available data from https://www.covid19india.org/ and Covid-19 Daily Bulletin (Jan 31-May 31), Directorate of Health Services, Kerala ( https://dashboard.kerala.gov.in/ ). We calculate the phase-wise period prevalence rate (PPR) and the case fatality rate (CFR) of the last phase. Compared to other major states, Kerala showed better response in preventing pandemic. The equation for the Kerala’s success has been simple, prioritized testing, widespread contact tracing, and promoting social distance. They also imposed uncompromising controls, were supported by an excellent healthcare system, government accountability, transparency, public trust, civil rights and importantly the decentralized governance and strong grass-root level institutions. The “proactive” measures taken by Kerala such as early detection of cases and extensive social support measures can be a “model for India and the world”.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.15.20132308: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.06.15.20132308v1 on medRxiv