The Covid-19 cases in Kerala continued unabated on Friday too despite the stringent controls announced by the State administration. Kerala tested 28,447 new Covid cases on Friday while 27 persons succumbed to the pandemic during the last 24 hours, according to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
Vijayan who met media persons on Friday evening quoted from all medical journals and pleaded with the people to cooperate with him in bringing down the Covid curve. I told the Prime Minister this morning that the State needs Rs 1,500 crore to provide Covid-19 vaccine to all the people. The Centre should pay this amount or provide us with free vaccines. It is impossible for the State to buy the vaccines from private companies by paying exorbitant prices,” said Vijayan.
The Chief Minister said that during the video conference, he shared his expertise with the Prime Minister.
Vijayan turned emotional when he recounted the incident of Subaida, a Muslim woman from Kollam, sending him her life savings of Rs 5,000 to purchase vaccine from open market.
“Last year Subaida had sold her sheep and sent me the money towards the Covid fund of the State. This is the state of financial affairs in Kerala,” he said. Vijayan said though there would not be any lock down in the State, the next two days (Saturday and Sunday) would see strict measures being followed all over Kerala. “This is to control crowding by people. Only those people who have to attend to emergency works would be allowed outside. Those who come out of their houses and places of residents should have authorization letters in which the purpose is written and signed by competent authorities,” said the chief minister.
The all party meeting scheduled for Monday would take a call on how to tighten the control measures, he said. The Chief Minister lambasted the Centre for its indifference towards the requests made by the State for help and assistance.
He evaded questions on the warning sounded by various Islamist organisations in Malappuram district that they would not heed to the control measures announced by the State administration. K Gopalakrishnan, the district collector, in his official order had stated that crowding at any places by five or more persons would not be allowed on account of the high rate at which the Covid-19 spreads. But leaders of the Samastha Kerala Jamiat-ul-Ulema, the intellectual think tank of conservative Muslims in the State that wiled big influence among the community had warmed the Collector and the State administration from enforcing such laws and that too during the Ramzan.
“This is a unilateral and dictatorial decision taken by the district collector. It would be ideal for the government to withdraw this law at the earliest,” said Syed Mohammed jiffry Muthukoya Thangal, president of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema in a statement on Friday.
Meanwhile the representatives of Kerala Government Medical Officers Association which balamed the LDF Government for the poor handling of the Covid-19 pandemic decided not to react to the chief minister’s statement that the medical doctors do not know the reason for the surge in the pandemic.
“Even as we stand by what we said on Thursday, we have decided not to react to Vijayan’s comments,” said a spokesman of the KGMOA.