{"id":18205,"date":"2020-05-14T16:00:03","date_gmt":"2020-05-14T07:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/may\/14\/the-coronavirus-slayer-how-keralas-rock-star-health-minister-helped-save-it-from-covid-19"},"modified":"2020-05-14T16:00:03","modified_gmt":"2020-05-14T07:00:03","slug":"the-coronavirus-slayer-how-keralas-rock-star-health-minister-helped-save-it-from-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=18205","title":{"rendered":"The coronavirus slayer! How Kerala&#8217;s rock star health minister helped save it from Covid-19"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>KK Shailaja has been hailed as the reason a state of 35 million people has only lost four to the virus. Here\u2019s how the former teacher did it<\/p>\n<p>On 20 January, KK Shailaja phoned one of her medically trained deputies. She had read online about a dangerous new virus spreading in China. \u201cWill it come to us?\u201d she asked. \u201cDefinitely, Madam,\u201d he replied. And so the health minister of the Indian state of Kerala began her preparations.<\/p>\n<p>Four months later, Kerala has reported only 524 cases of Covid-19, four deaths and \u2013 according to Shailaja \u2013 no community transmission. The state has a population of about 35 million and a <a href=\"http:\/\/mospi.nic.in\/\">GDP per capita of <\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/mospi.nic.in\/\">only <\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/mospi.nic.in\/\">\u00a32,200<\/a>. By contrast, the UK (double the population, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imf.org\/external\/pubs\/ft\/weo\/2019\/02\/weodata\/weorept.aspx?pr.x=43&amp;pr.y=8&amp;sy=2016&amp;ey=2021&amp;scsm=1&amp;ssd=1&amp;sort=country&amp;ds=.&amp;br=1&amp;c=112&amp;s=NGDP_RPCH%2CNGDPD%2CPPPGDP%2CNGDPDPC%2CPPPPC%2CPCPIPCH&amp;grp=0&amp;a=\">GDP per capita of <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imf.org\/external\/pubs\/ft\/weo\/2019\/02\/weodata\/weorept.aspx?pr.x=43&amp;pr.y=8&amp;sy=2016&amp;ey=2021&amp;scsm=1&amp;ssd=1&amp;sort=country&amp;ds=.&amp;br=1&amp;c=112&amp;s=NGDP_RPCH%2CNGDPD%2CPPPGDP%2CNGDPDPC%2CPPPPC%2CPCPIPCH&amp;grp=0&amp;a=\">\u00a340,400<\/a>) has reported <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/may\/12\/uk-coronavirus-death-toll-passes-40000-official-figures-say\">more than 40,000 deaths<\/a>, while the US (10 times the population, <a href=\"https:\/\/data.worldbank.org\/indicator\/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=US\">GDP per capita of \u00a351,000<\/a>) has reported more than 82,000 deaths; both countries have rampant community transmission.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/may\/14\/the-coronavirus-slayer-how-keralas-rock-star-health-minister-helped-save-it-from-covid-19\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KK Shailaja has been hailed as the reason a state of 35 million people has only lost four to the virus. Here\u2019s how the former teacher did itOn 20 January, KK Shailaja phoned one of her medically trained deputies. She had read online about a dangerous n&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1306,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1069,59,566,346,1059,62,914,1408,79,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coronavirus-outbreak","category-global-development","category-global-health","category-health","category-health-policy","category-india","category-infectious-diseases","category-public-services-policy","category-society","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1306"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18206,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18205\/revisions\/18206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}