Kerala's approach to containing corona

Its people-centric response has mobilised the whole state against the pandemic

On January 30, the first case of Covid-19 in India was identified in Kerala. After weeks of being the state with the highest number of Covid patients, Kerala has not only flattened the curve, but has done so with an extremely low mortality rate of 0.5 per cent compared with 2.7 per cent for India as a whole.  This has been achieved despite the state having a high population density and high exposure to international travellers. 

The key elements of Kerala’s approach to containing the Covid-19 pandemic were: (1) developing an air-tight health protocol for isolating and tracing contacts of