Kerala Demographic Challenge and the Way Forward

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#opinion Kerala is a state that is often considered one of the best places to live in India. It ranks high on multiple indices of the NITI Aayog and boasts impressive Human Development Indicators such as literacy rate, healthcare, education, and low corruption. This success is attributed to the contributions of visionary leaders, irrespective of political affiliation, as well as public participation in socio-politics, policymakers, subject experts, the erstwhile Travancore Kingdom, and many others. This collective effort has led to what is known as the Kerala Model of Development. The state is among the top ten in terms of both GDP and per capita income. Despite Kerala's significant progress in quality of life and human development parameters, there are other fronts where this success is lacking. Today, Kerala is in the news for negative reasons such as a financial crisis, decreased revenue, rising debt, high unemployment, brain drain, and other challenges. While some issues are ov
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India's Success Against the Third Wave and Curious Case of Kerala

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India has successfully fought and won against the third wave. On 31st January, PM Narendra Modi announced that India's fight against the third wave is a success. This will prompt us to have a question in our mind, what did India do remarkably, how did India deal with the issue much better than the US which saw over 1 million cases being reported every day. 

India's peak in the third wave was 317,000 while during the second wave was 450,000 around. This is also at a time when Omicron which has caused the third wave, has higher transmissibility and infection rate. The chances of asymptomatic cases may also be true. India in the same period had started unveiling booster doses, even if it was late. It is also possible that a very large population is not getting tested and ignore the infection. Another big achievement for India is the emergency approval of the Covaxin vaccine to be used for children 15-17 age group. India also surpassed the goal of 75% vaccination which indeed is a remarkable achievement. 

In the third wave, we can see the centre and state being more proactive and better coordinated in its approach. 

Kerala 

Unlike India, Kerala saw its peak when the national-level cases were coming down heavily. The state reported close to 55,000 cases per day which is it's own is a record. Kerala still continued to report a large number of cases even when nationwide case numbers were dropping. Just two weeks back the case count was so high that the neighbouring state of Karnataka had imposed RTPCR checking for all people entering Karnataka from Kerala. With the present numbers, Kerala is fully vaccinated for the age 18 and above. 

The CM was not in the state during this period, he was in USA for treatment and also spent a week in Dubai. Exams were planned to be connected which were later postponed due to protests. Restrictions for funerals and wedding functions were planned when CPIM's district level conventions were being held across the state. This led to massive backlash from the people as well as opposition and the media. 

Curious case- Why didn't Kerala get into Lockdown? It is not a curious case that Kerala had the most number of cases, but the fact that a state which was very much ahead in imposing lockdown didn't lockdown this time. The health minister also made a statement that there won't be a complete lockdown. Lockdown just got restricted to Sunday curfew and schools and colleges staying closed.  So the main reasons could be that Kerala now thinks it should focus more on the economy and stabilise the normal lives of people. Post the second wave, there were massive criticisms against the government for continuing with the lockdown and shops not being allowed to open. This had upset a lot of shop keepers and shop owner unions, These are the people who turn out for the ruling LDF in large numbers. So there is no way the govt could have politically angered them. 

Primarily, Kerala's hospitalisation rate despite the high number of cases was less than 3% and the death rate was only 0.5%. so the govt. could take a risk in prioritising resources for the economy. As of now, we are in the second half of February and per day cases have fallen to around 10,000 only. During the second wave, Kerala's lockdown had prompted the formation of clusters across the state and unimmunised people being affected the most. 

Future

Vaccination should have done the magic, else it would have more hard for people and also a threat to public health, We can also see how the developed nations saw a record number of cases each day. There are multiple anti-vaccine protests, anti-mandate protests and a lot more. These have all resulted in cases being spurting again and again in the west. Getting vaccinated is the best way to counter the disease and get out this pandemic. 

India's fight against the third wave has been a success and an important case study to learn about as well as it important to learn it for politics, vaccine diplomacy, geopolitics as well as public policy. 

Courtesy- https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/third-wave-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-in-india-what-lies-ahead/

Newscapsule Link. 

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