Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has tested positive for COVID-19. The Chief Minister, who is 75 years old, tested positive on Thursday, 8 April. "Currently, he has no complications. He is at his house in Kannur. He will be shifted to Kozhikode Medical College shortly," the Chief Minister’s Office told TNM. As of now, the Chief Minister is asymptomatic and further treatment will be based on instructions from doctors.
The chief minister had a recent public interaction on Tuesday, 6 April, when he spoke to media persons after casting his vote in the 2021 Kerala Assembly elections.
CM Pinarayi’s daughter Veena Vijayan had tested positive on 6 April, and had come to cast her vote on polling day in a PPE kit after 6 pm, which was the period allotted for COVID-19 patients to vote.
Instructions have been given to all those who had direct contact with the Chief Minister in the past few days to self-quarantine and monitor their health. It is also likely that a medical board comprising an expert panel of doctors will be formed to treat the CM.
Pinarayi Vijayan had received his first dose of COVID-19 vaccine on 3 March. He had taken his first dose at the Government Women and Children’s Hospital in Thycaud in Thiruvananthapuram. The 75-year-old CM was also observed for 30 minutes, as per protocol, for adverse effects of the vaccine. On exiting the hospital, he told media persons that the experience was good.
Kerala reported 3,502 new COVID-19 cases and 16 more deaths on Wednesday, pushing the caseload to 11,44,594 and the toll to 4,710. The state health department said it tested 60,554 samples in the last 24 hours and the test positivity rate was 5.78 percent. Till now, 1,35,14,740 samples have been tested.
Meanwhile, 1,955 people recuperated from the disease on Wednesday, taking the total people who have recovered in the state to 11,08,078. Currently, there are 31,493 people under treatment in the state and 1,52,136 under observation, of which, 4,928 are in isolation wards of various hospitals.
(Published in an arrangement with The News Minute.)
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