Covid-19: The mystery of rising infections in India's Kerala
The southern Indian state of Kerala accounts for more than half of the country's new Covid-19 infections. The BBC's Soutik Biswas and Vikas Pandey report on why cases continue to rise in the state, months after the waning of the deadly second wave.
In January 2020, Kerala reported India's first Covid-19 case in a medical student who returned from Wuhan, in China, where the pandemic began.
pg slotThe number of cases rose steadily and it became a hotspot. By March, however, half a dozen states were reporting more cases than the picturesque southern state.
Sticking faithfully to the contagion control playbook of test, trace and isolate and involving grassroots networks, Kerala brought down its case count drastically. There were breathless stories about the state flattening the curve. The first wave was protracted, but Kerala managed to control the spread of infection. The official death count remained low.
Infections rose faster during the deadly second wave this summer. And they show no signs of abating even as the pandemic wanes in other parts of the country.
With barely 3% of India's population, Kerala has been accounting for more than half of India's new cases.
The reproduction number of the virus - which explains a disease's ability to spread and estimates the number of people infected by one already infected person - has crossed one.