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There was case when the innocent man accused in the murder of a woman and the rape of a six-year-old girl succeeded in playing a crucial role in catching the real perpetrator while being in prison. But the truth should be said - this “strange way” was required because the police and the prosecution didn’t do their job.Alexander Rusinov's answer to What were some interesting cases of wrongful conviction?Even among many cases of miscarriage of justice the story of Clarence Elkins is standing out as an example of how someone can get convicted in most terrible crime with very little proofs provided by prosecution and also demonstrating an extreme distance the prosecution is ready to go in order to defend old clearly wrong Court decision while leaving not guilty man to rot in prison. It also features some totally alien logics employed in the process. The case clearly shows that everyone, not only minorities and fringe society groups members - can became victim of injustice in Court as Elkins is a white man from low middle-class background…It also proves that persistence and determination in fighting for wrongly convicted can overcome bad will of the system.On summer night of June 7 1998 58-year-old Judy Johnson was raped and murdered in her home in small town Barberton in Ohio. Her 6 years old granddaughter Brooke was also raped, beaten and knocked unconscious. When she regained consciousness several hours later she walked to one of neighboring houses – where three girls of close to Brooke's age lived, so she frequently played with them. Mother of those girls didn't invite Brooke into house, didn't call ambulance or police. After quite a long delay she drove bleeding girl to her parents.But this strange behavior didn't catch eyes of investigators as they were sure they already know who the offender is. The girl said that he "looked like Uncle Clarence". Clarence Elkins – son-in-law of Johnson was arrested same day. The motive as investigators claimed was interference of the murder victim in the rocky marriage of Elkins and her daughter Melinda.It's strange by itself that regular turmoil in family relations was presumed to be reason of an attack including sexual assault of a little girl (how could it be connected to the hatred against mother-in-law?) while the accused had no history of violent crimes and sexual assault in the past… But much worse prosecutors just had no proof whatsoever connecting Elkins to the crime except six-year-old Brooke's words — not a single testimony about Elkins even being in Barberton that night, not any blood strain on his clothes… Moreover Melinda's testimony that her husband was that night in their home 40 miles from the crime scene was totally disregarded as "denial" of the guilt of the father of her children in her mother’s death.So one neighbor said he heard Johnson was afraid of her son-in-law. And Brooke (with prosecutors’ “help”) stated that assaulter was Uncle Clarence and not just somebody who looked like Uncle Clarence . And it was enough. Clarence Elkins was found guilty and sentenced to two terms of life-imprisonment.And it would be the end of the story, and he would be in prison now, if not for the fanatical persistence of Elkins' wife and some amount of luck. Melinda was sure that he was not guilty, and fought with great investment of time and all resources she had. Interestingly it was not a case of unlimited love… The marriage was actually in the phase close to dissolution but she couldn't stand the situation when her children would be labelled as sons of a murderer and rapist, while the real murderer of her mother will be a free man. Also disrespect of the court to her words was staggering. Melinda's testimony was very elaborate and not flattering for Clarence. That night he promised to help Melinda in home as one of children was sick. But instead he was drinking with friends until after midnight and fell asleep after returning home while Melinda had to stay awake caring for the child most of the night. There was no chance that Elkins could somehow sneak from the home, drive over an hour to her mother’s home, kill and rape and return home without being seen…So the war of Melinda Elkins against the system started… From the beginning Brooke herself wasn't really sure in her identification of the perpetrator. Three years later, Melinda arranged hypnosis séance and after it Brooke claimed she remembered that the man had brown eyes. Elkins’s eyes are blue and so Brooke recanted her implication of Elkins. The Court didn't accept appellation based on this new testimony – which is logical by itself as hypnosis-induced memories aren't really reliable, but specifically in Elkins' case after this moment there was no real logical explanation of his conviction – as the whole case totally relied on Brooke’s identification of Elkins and she now claimed she was wrong. The year was 2002. Clarence Elkins was left in prison.Melinda decided that stronger arguments proving Clarence being not guilty can be found. Luckily some amount of “genetic material” (actually pubic hairs) was found on Judy Johnson’s body. Results of DNA expertise were found not conclusive and were not used in the trial. Melinda by her request was given access to the material but she had to fund any additional (and expensive) DNA testing, so she raised almost $40,000 by herself and then with help of Ohio Innocence Project succeeded to persuade a lab in Texas to test samples with a discounted price… And the results completely excluded Clarence Elkins. Do you think the innocent man was freed? The Court rejected reopening the case on the basis of the prosecution claim that the DNA testing was not needed for conviction and that the jury would “likely” convict him anyway not depending on test results… Maybe this is valid juristically argumentation – I don't know, but as I said above it is totally alien non-human logic. The year 2003 ended. Clearly not-guilty Clarence Elkins was still in prison.So when even stronger arguments for Elkins’ innocence didn’t help, Melinda and her allies set on finding the murderer by themselves. They hired private investigator and started to look for suspects… There was a man who appeared to be in some relationship with Judy a short time prior to her death. He was known to have rage bouts after suffering a head injury. Brooke said she remembers his eyes… Ironically she was wrong again. A DNA test excluded this man, too.Then Melinda recalled that the behavior of Tonia Brasiel — the neighbor who didn't allow the bleeding child into her home — seemed to be very suspicious. Then it turned out that Brasiel’s common-law husband, one Earl G. Mann, had an extensive criminal record including violent crimes like robberies and racially motivated assault. And it should be said when Melinda and her friends launched their investigation he was not walking free… because he had been convicted of raping his own daughters. Moreover initially Brasiel refused to speak but eventually she admitted that night when Johnson was murdered Mann — who had been released from prison just several days before — returned home with deep scratches on his back and when Brooke came to their home he became extremely angry and forbade Brasiel to call police or medics.Earl G. Mann (left) and Clarence Elkins (right)So the neighbor of Judy Johnson was a violent criminal convicted for sexually assaulting children. And saying that this man’s actions after Johnson's murder and Brooke's rape were extremely suspicious would be an understatement. But the court rejected a request to order DNA testing for Mann. The year was 2004. And innocent Clarence Elkins was still in prison.This surrealistic story had an appropriate ending. Coincidentally Mann was transferred to the same facility where Elkins was serving his sentence. Elkins collected a cigarette butt discarded by Mann and handled it to his attorney. A DNA testing result was a match. And still district attorney declined to release Elkins claiming that some other people's tests would also show a match. This was theoretically correct but this specific man additionally was a neighbor, a violent criminal and a pedophile. Only when the Ohio Innocence Project succeeded to persuade the Ohio state attorney general to interfere in the case were charges against Elkins dropped and he was released in December 2005 after serving 6.5 years in prison.It's hard to say whether this case is more about mindless bureaucracy or malignant "esprit de corps" but you can't help but think how many wrongly convicted didn't have somebody as persistent and creative as Melinda on their side.

If you find one it is because the industry has changed. 30 years ago the 8 years of schooling while paying tuition and working often menial jobs before residency where you were paid a wage that was less than minimum wage and took another 3-7 years at similarly low rate of pay and 80-120 hours per week until one graduated the residency program. So the average physician began earning real earnings (i.e. greater than $25,000 a year) in their early to mid-late thirties.Tuition wasn't huge at state medical schools although private ones had higher tuition levels. Debt load and grinding hours during residency were then repaid with a reasonable lifestyle. Still the average physician made nowhere near $300,000 and still doesn't. When one graduated the doctor was a respected physician or surgeon and most students didn't have huge debt loads. Insurance was known as "hospitalization" because that was all that it covered. The individual paid the physician and for medicines. Neither were particularly expensive. Insurance didn't pay for "everything", but there weren't expensive tests like MRI machines and CT scan was in its infancy. Malpractice cases were rare. People trusted their physicians and surgeons.Over the next twenty years several things happened. First Malpractice cases filed exploded. Although the defendant (physician, hospital etc) won 90% of the time there were serious costs to defending the case. The average defense cost over $100,000 including court costs, expert witnesses, legal fees etc.) even though the case resulted in a judgement for the doctor. Lawyers found newer and more novel ways to sue and started advertising. This resulted in doctors ordering more tests and practicing defensive medicine.Medical care became more expensive. New medicines were developed. MRI scans were developed. Finally the insurance industry developed new contract models. Not each payer group paid the same for the same medical care. Medicare for the elderly and disabled saw their costs exploding and so developed fee schedules that paid much less than what an insurance company pays (currently for a surgeon Medicare is strictly break even....meaning after overhead the surgeon makes zero). Medicaid pays differently state by state....in Louisiana it averages 28% of the orthopedic surgeon's bill (i.e. the doctor takes care of the patient and loses money) in Mississippi it averages 10% (i.e. the doctor takes care of the patient and loses a lot of money). Meanwhile each of these patients has the opportunity to sue you for some perception of substandard care (such as the nurse didn't bring my pain medicines quickly enough).Insurance companies developed the PPO model and the HMO model reducing payments to physicians. At some points in this model primary care doctors were paid a flat fee of $12-$14 per patient per month....zero visits or 15 same payment plus a small co-pay. So the sicker patients were sent on to high priced consultants....it didn't work out well for either the primary care doctor or the patient.Next in 1994 Medicare made a rule change that made the post-operative care included with an operation from 10 days to 90 days. All other carriers followed suit. This resulted in about a 25% reduction in payments related to the operation. More recently if the patient is re-admitted for a complication Medicare refuses to pay anything. So now we test that the patient is not getting a urinary tract infection and keep the patient in the hospital another day. How can we control certain complications? A borderline or early Alzheimer's patient who broke her hip and had surgery is now in rehabilitation. Being out of her usual element she gets confused but hides it. She gets out of bed by herself (yes the rails were up) and slips breaking her wrist. Now she is back at the hospital. We won't get paid to fix her wrist and perhaps some lawyer will say it is our fault that she was not restrained in rehab....she was fine at home and still driving a car.Over the years the "delayed gratification" and respect going to school and working your rear end off for a stable life changed. Tuition rates changed both at undergraduate levels and at medical school. I was charged $2500 a year for University of Maryland school of medicine and there were few fees. Now the exact same state school the total for an in-state student is $33,111 tuition plus $4179 fees plus $2600 for health insurance. Tuition for out of state students is $58,990 + fees plus + medical insurance. None of this includes some additional fees of $680 +100 for Juniors or $175 for seniors. This also does not include books or cost of living. University of Maryland estimates all expenses for in-state students at $62,767 per year and $89,846 for out of state students. This is generally paid with loans some low interest, some high interest.By an online inflation calculator tuition at my medical school should be between $5000 and $7000 depending whether you use the year I started or finished medical school as a comparison in the inflation calculator. There were almost no fees. They provided free medical care to the students but there was a $150 insurance fee and a $56 malpractice fee.So tuition costs went up over 6 fold the rate of inflation. Now the average student exits residency with between $160,000 and $200,000 in debt before they start making money. I was $17,500 in debt in 1986 and no interest accrued during residency. The same inflation calculator says that is equivalent to just under $38,000 today. I know some residents have more than $300,000 debt in residency.Society's attitudes to doctors has changed too. We have gone from honored and respected physicians and surgeons to "providers". Each year the insurance companies pay us less and expect more especially in terms of paperwork to justify payment. They use terms such as "usual reasonable and customary" to define what they should pay. Did they survey physicians to come up with this rate? No they looked at their data and put a 30-50% discount on it and then implied that was what all physicians "reasonably" should charge.Imagine if a plumber you had called gave you an estimate and then after the work was done he handed you a bill for fixing your pipe and you said "most plumbers would only charge half that...here is your payment" and walked away.....he would put a lien on your house unless he had contracted with you for the lower fee. The fact that government through medicare and medicaid utilize about 70% of medical services but pay only 50% of the revenue means the privately insured or uninsured patient is overcharged to compensate. List prices for medical care bear no relationship to the actual cost. For example: A local hospital did my shoulder arthroscopy and rotator cuff repair...a 90 minute operation. The "bill" was over $39,000 but with a $200 co-pay and $4,100 payment from my insurance the bill was "paid in full" and they still made money. Imagine that at 11% of list price the hospital makes a profit. The real person to get burned is the patient not under contract. The marketplace has become so highly distorted with the insured patients paying a huge percentage compared to the care they receive.As an example of this rampant bureaucracy I will use a patient who has never been seen before by the orthopedic surgeon. He comes in with a complaint of knee pain. A medical history is taken, the patient's medications and other medical issues are reviewed, the patient is examined and then on the order of the orthopedist an x-ray of the knee is done. The x-ray is reviewed and the orthopedic surgeon comes to a provisional diagnosis of arthritis based on history, exam and x-rays. He discusses potential treatments offers the patient a "cortisone injection" (there are multiple varieties with different profiles). Upon agreeing to receive the injection the orthopedic surgeon preps the patient's knee and injects the joint....a skill limited almost exclusively to orthopedic surgeons (mostly due to malpractice limitations not that it is that hard). Before injecting the medicine he sees if he can get a sample of joint fluid out for tests (cell counts, dfferential, crystals as in gout or pseudogout). After the injection the surgeon gets free samples of an anti-inflammatory medication out and instructs the patient on use and precautions and writes the patient a prescription, but tells him if the pills don't seem to help don't fill the prescription and call in.The orthopedic surgeon's bill to the insurance company includes initial office visit medium level, x-ray of the knee, cost of the medication used and an injection into a major joint fee. Appropriate modifiers are attached to the injection fee to show it is a separate procedure from the examination (i.e the patient did not just come in for an allergy injection but was examined, diagnosed, and treated). The bill wherein the brand name high quality proprietary medication that was used is also attached as documentation. Pretty straightforward one would think.One would think the following would happen. The patient pays his co-pay. The bill would be reduced to the agreed upon contract rate agreed between the physician and insurance company and the insurance would pay the rest resulting in about 70% payment of the original bill while the rest is written off (no tax savings for write-offs either). The doctor after overhead would make $40-$60 for his services including having an x-ray machine, an x-ray tech, reading the x-ray as well as his expertise in diagnosis and injecting the joint. Remember this is an insured patient. If the patient is on medicare, after overhead he makes zero.What very frequently happens is the insurance company classifies the shot as an "operation", they then apply a rule that you cannot bill for an operation and an office visit in the same day and completely exclude any charge for the office visit (evaluation and management) and pay for the injection at the contract rate and medication per the contract....but may throw out the expensive cortisone mixture that is only available brand name and pay the physician based on the rate for much less effective but generic short acting "cortisone". No where in the contract is this stated or allowed that they pay you only for the cheapest least effective medication in a a group of medications...but they do this quite often. Now: since you "operated" on the patient they now may claim the patient has 10 days of free follow up or some try to take it to 90 though the code books clearly say 0 days follow up for an injection. A joint injection is not an operation.So now using the dictated note/EMR where the examination, history x-rays that were taken and a separate note describing the injection and materials used with another copy of price of medication used is included. This appeal process takes several weeks and is virtually always won by the physician who is telling the truth. Yet this whole process takes employee time (probably $10-$15) for the extra $60 in reimbursement that actually was the pay for that visit. Some physicians have become so tired of the game that they have the patient come back for the injection the next day.The attitude is that all doctors are "rich" and patients shouldn't have to pay anything if they have insurance with an attitude that "I didn't ask to get sick/hurt and I am me....so you should be happy to care for me for free... (meanwhile without the co-pay and deductible the doctor loses money on that patient). Society applauds athletes who make millions and entrepreneurs who invent a new device and make $100 million but not an average physician with a salary of $227,000 doctors for which doctors train 80-100 hours a week for years.My two sons went to MIT as did I. They had two physicians as parents who told them not to go into medicine unless they really wanted to. One is straight CS one is CS/EE. They STARTED at higher than the average pay for physicians. with 4 years of schooling. Once has a BS one a BS and MEng.So now physicians in the US are expected to do more for less, have lost societal respect, and have to go into serious debt and work an insane time period BEFORE they can start earning real money. Older ones are starting to quit. I know a 63 year old primary care doctor who quit because of electronic medical records. I know a vascular surgeon who quit because at age 52 he was tired of coming out at 3 AM to take out appendices (for $400 for his night of sleep every fourth night for the insured or free for the uninsured) or take care of the drunk driver who had ruptured his spleen. He went into hospital management.Most physicians give up a lot of their life to take care of others, yet somehow we respect the person coming up with the next i phone chip more. He will probably never save a life, but the fact that he can validate code for the next chip until it is flawless gets him more pay than someone who may save or improve 1000's of lives.

I can’t compare to all states of India with Kerala and its not fair too at this stage to make any comparisons. We are in the middle of a crisis and this is not just applicable to Kerala or South India or India as whole… Rather it's applicable to the entire world.Every government in this world is trying their level best to serve their citizens in the crisis. We can’t claim, ONLY we are doing the best. Everywhere, govts are trying to do best for their people. Maybe in some areas, we might be standing slightly better, some areas we may be lacking too.So I am not into any comparison at all. But since I write about Kerala in Quora, I feel I will write what all Kerala State has done in its fight against Corona Virus. I am talking only in specific to Kerala, not in comparison with any others.And please note, this is an evolving crisis and every day something new is being added to the fight. So sticking to things as of yesterday- 28/03/2020Contact trackingFor me personally, I consider this job done by Kerala’s DHS (Directorate of Health Services) as something the best they could do for us. Learning from Nipah outbreak experience, Kerala has used its resources to track contacts and people who been associated with the index patient (first patient in a cluster) to identify a cluster and isolate from the community. This includes detailed tracking of patient’s route from the moment he/she landed in Kerala until the moment he/she been quarantined into the hospital. Most of the tracking is done thro’ inputs made by the patient which are cross verified by officials of Public Health Inspectorate and Community Medicine Department, apart from using Police’s intelligence sources like Cyber cell to track down the mobile tower locations of the patient, special branch reports, phone records, CCTV camera recordings etc. By this manner, DHS able to identify a cluster comprising of potential secondary and tertiary contacts made by the index patient who will be either home or hospital quarantined and if any symptoms are shown, their blood samples will be tested.The DHS frequently makes regular route maps of patients and publishes in public to let people know about the time and place where the patient was and ask the public to declare to DHS, if they were in at that place at the specified time, to be declared as part of a cluster.Route Map of Patient 1 of Pathanamthitta which resulted in the start of second wave since March 2020This kind of tracking helped Kerala as of now to contain the disease to cluster level, though some have jumped out of quarantine and their actions created more clusters and patients.How Kerala's flowchart model is helping effective coronavirus contact tracingKerala launches contact-tracing programme to neutralise coronavirus threat2. TestingI have written answers before. Kerala’s strategy in combating this disease is by constant testing of samples. Kerala so far is the state that has done the highest number of testing among Indian states and its testing ratio is somewhat at par with many major affected countries like Japan or similar.Arun Mohan (അരുൺ മോഹൻ)'s answer to Why are no COVID-19 deaths reported in Kerala even though the state has the highest number of cases?States That Are Testing More Are Detecting More Cases, Data Show |If Kerala has done anything good in this sector, its solely because of regular testing and able to identify people quickly.As of yesterday (28/02/2020),Kerala tested 6,067 samples5,270 samples were negative165 are currently on treatment (Confirmed cases)1,34,370 are in isolation/surveillance (not yet confirmed)8 have recovered and still kept in observationand 1 death has been reported (the very first death in the state)This massive Pro-testing approach has helped Kerala to have nearly 10 Testing Virology labs in the state, including an NIV unit that helps faster and regular testing. As of now, Kerala has the highest number of blood sample testing facility in IndiaAs yesterday Kerala announced massive rapid testing after getting in-principle approval from ICMR. Kerala is the first state to announce so and was pressing ICMR for rapid testing permission for every single one in isolation/quarantine for last few days.3. Medical preparednessKerala was expecting to have Corona right soon after China declared its condition way back in Jan 2020. Kerala due to its very high non-resident Malayalee population living in many countries of the world was sure, they will soon get this new disease thro’ them and it was so right its judgement when the first Covid Case of India was reported in Kerala way back in Feb 2020. And it fully contained the first wave of Covid entry in Feb when it could isolate all cases and avoid spread etc.In the second wave, which happened thro’ an irresponsible family’s actions that created multiple clusters and later thro’ various foreign imports (some again were of irresponsible actions), the medical teams were so prepared to deal with emergencyDHS by March mid has already completed setting up various contingency plans, which were titled as PLAN A, PLAN B AND PLAN C. These plans were effectively communicated to entire medical and administrative officials of the states and everything has been well defined. This even includes thresh-holds for initiating each plan. Medical infra audits were carried out as part of this medical contingency plansThe Plan A which is currently ongoing has seen mobilization of resources associated with 50 Govt hospitals and 2 private hospitals on standby with total of 974 isolation beds and 22 ICUs readied for Corona carePlan B which has been initiated last day has mobilized resources for an additional 71 govt hospitals and 55 private hospitals for combating this disease which will add another 1408 beds.Plan C is the next stage (once the diseases spread comes to 3rd stage) which will mobilize 81 govt hospitals and 41 private hospitals with another addition of 3028 beds and 218 ICU bedsThese plans were drawn in March 1st week, which shows the extend of planning of Kerala Govt.The new set of plans (unofficially codenamed as PLAN D) will feature nationalization or semi-nationalization of entire Private hospitals of Kerala featuring a total bed of 69,434 beds and 5507 ICU beds. As of the latest decision, the govt decided to take over unused private hospitals and those medical colleges whose operations were suspended by MCI. 3 hospitals facilities and one Hostel complex were taken over in last 48 hours (PVS Hospital in Kochi, Anjarakady Medical College in Kannur, Shanti Jamaath Islami Hospital in Kozhikode and Sree Sankaracharya University Hostel Complex in Kochi)Collector Ernakulam (Kochi) taking over an unused hospital in Kochi city to be converted into a Covid Care Hospital facility.The Plan D features taking over hotels, hostels, lodges and other commercial units to develop into Isolation centres and Temporary Isolation centres, which shall be more than 2 Million rooms.As of now, Kerala Govt has announced opening Exclusive Covid Hospitals in every district of Kerala (14 Covid Hospitals in the level of tertiary care facility) and the first one is opened in Kochi- CMC (Cochin Medical College) which is a government Medical college and others are expected to open by this weekKerala’s first dedicated Covid Care Hospital centre in Kochi with 500 isolation beds and 70 plus ICU bedsGovt has been in talks with various community organizations and they all pledged their support for the fight. The Catholic Hospitals Association which is the second-largest Medical group after Government hospital network has decided to give all their hospitals to DHS along with their medical Staff (2660 Doctors, 10,300 Nurses, 5,500+ Paramedics and 6800 Admin staff). The Nair Service Society has assured Govt to provide its 2 hospitals and 100 plus educational institutions which they can convert into field hospitals if required. The SNDP Trust also assured Govt to provide its 1000 plus schools to be converted as field medical hospitals or treatment centres. It also assured to give its medical college to the state upon demand. So as Muslim Educational Society and Jammat e Hind Islami also assured to provide all its hospitals, madrasas, schools and colleges to the government for its better use.4. Upgrading Covid Hospital facilitiesOne key factor Kerala Govt focused on improving the facilities at all Covid care hospitals to ensure the public do not hide their medical cases to avoid visiting or isolating themselves.All Govt Covid Isolation rooms and treatment rooms are modernized and sanitized as per WHO protocols. Patients were brought to such isolation wards in dedicated Covid care ambulances and the isolation rooms were all modern and neatThe govt took extra care to ensure the food patients get at these hospitals should be as inviting as possible to shed all bias and prejudices against Govt hospitalsCovid patients gets inviting meals with options like Soups, fruits, eggs, Dosa, Appams, Rice-fish curries, chappatis, curd etc while foreign patients gets continental meals like Toasted breads, cheeses, omelettes/scrambled eggs, roasted chicken, biscuits etc. Patients do get daily milk, tea, coffee, fresh fruit juices, packed mineral water and daily newspapers (courtesy from Hindu).Dosa, eggs, oranges, fish fry: Here's the menu at COVID-19 isolation wards in KeralaThe hospital authorities have taken every wish of patients as much as possible, for example an covid affected Kid from Italy in treatment at Kochi were treated with Italian pasta, Ravoli and pizzas as the kid likes only Italian food which were ordered from an Italian restaurant nearby.5. Medical Industrial PreparednessKerala Govt has taken extra note in preparing itself for a major medical emergency. The state’s Medicine production has gone into full swing. The state-run Kerala State Drugs and Pharmaceutical Corporation has been entrusted with bulk mass production of Hand sanitizers which produced more than 1 Lakh bottles of Sanitizers and increased production targets to 1 million (10 lakh) by end of this week.1 lakh bottles of hand sanitizers in a day: Kerala goes all guns blazing against Covid-19KSDP also entrusted with mass production of 8 critical generic drugs and 2 drugs for which it holds patents to ensure no shortage.The state’s Electricity board has ordered to procure 500 new medical ventilators exclusively for Covid operations (Kerala state holds 5000 ventilators in total which is approx 12% of total available ventilators in the country). The state is going to enter talks with various manufactures for portable ventilatorsIn addition, the industry department has been asked to explore the possibility to produce 1 lakh N95 masks with any tech partnership with companies using facilities available to the department. In the meantime, the state will continue the mass production of cloth and surgical masks.As of today’s (28/03/2020) cabinet decision, Kerala Govt decided to form a medical industry cluster to manufacture indigenous medical equipment supplies at the earliest using existing facilities.The Kochi Superfab Lab, India’s only such facility were given the charge to design equipment required for such a major medical emergency. The state will produce its own Respirators, Ventilators, N95 Masks, Oxygen cylinders, Bio-Medical equipment preparing itself for the worst medical emergency.ISRO’s VSSC facility in Trivandrum and Kochi’s Technology Innovation Zone along with Kerala Start Up Mission will be fully utilized to design and develop newer and practical technologies and existing factories in Palakkad’s Kanjikode Industrial Cluster will be fully converted to produce equipment required for the medical sector. For this, a meeting of industrialists will be called tomorrow and setting the plan in motionThe state has opened a new challenge to all its technocrats and tech student entrepreneurs and start up promoters to come up with ideas for effective tech solutions to deal with a major emergency.A website- http://WWW.BREAKCORONA.IN has been started by Kerala Govt to invite newer ideas that can easily be put into action for which Kerala Govt will support financially and these projects will also generate employment and opportunities in the economy.6. Technology Usage and War RoomOne main feature which Kerala’s DHS used to control Covid spread was its Control Room set up at Kerala State Disaster Management Authority complex in Trivandrum and district headquarters. This was something which I feel, gave real-time updates to DHS on the spread and ways to control and contain it.These multiple data recording and analysis units helped to track patient history, procure data from multiple sources, feed in data and help control room unit officials to analyze patterns of travels and contact detailsIn a way, it was a full-fledged health surveillance facility. Patients route maps were made, their contacts were identified and their movements were tracked from this Hitech facility. These 24 hours of data control rooms, helped to give a clearer picture and understand the extent of spread thro’ interactive maps etc.This also includes geo-surveillance, monitoring those in quarantine with geo-fencing, GPS enabled trackers, electronic anklet monitoring systems etcScreenshot of portal that highlights patients under GPS enabled Geo-fencing to track their movements as used by District Administration- PathanamthittaCoronavirus | GPS-based tracking of all those quarantined in PathanamthittaIn addition, Kerala is using multiple data collection methods to track vulnerable people and develop maps to identify potential hot spots and nearest medical facilities. The disease mapping helps to have a strong information flow for various strategic decision making to control community transmission.Kerala uses open source public utility to fight COVID-19 - Geospatial WorldKerala govt to use ration card data for digital map on COVID-19Disease mapping to stem community transmissionApart from this, the centralized health support centre- DISHA (Direct Intervention System for Health Awareness) played a crucial role in tracking and supporting patients and other suspect cases. DISHA is a centralized call centre of DHS with a toll-free number- 1056 which was started to support patients for telemedicine and tele-support like counselling etc. But during this COVID time, it was fully converted into COVID Support and call centre facility. They notified the patient records, their queries and supported back with real-time updates of their medical conditions, moving ambulance support for them and mental counselling etc to alleviate stress.Disha 1056 call center, the nerve point of Anti-Corona operationsCoronavirus: This team at Kerala helpline desk works round the clock in fight against the pandemicNow, the state is coming up with a sophisticated Hitech War Room in the State Secretariat that has senior Bureaucrats as members to control and coordinate entire Covid operations including logistics movements during lockdown etc. A new secured line has been established- 0471-2517225 for the public to call at War Room directly.War room to coordinate effortsWar room in Kerala to supervise COVID-19 containment activities8. Lockdown SupportThe Lockdown as announced by Central Govt has affected every Indians. Kerala is no exception to this grave situation.During lockdown time, the state has focused on maximizing deliveries of essential supplies at home.The state has partnered with Zomato in Kochi, Trivandrum and Kozhikode to supply essentials from state-run Supermarket chain- Supplyco to public. 40 stores of Supplyco will start services of Zomato for home delivering of essentials including the essential kit of basic food items priced at Rs 500 (5 Kg rice, 1 litre coconut oil, 1 kg sugar, half kg of 2 kinds of pulsesSupplyco ties up with Zomato for online delivery of essential items in KochiThe state’s Consumerfed also entered into Online delivery starting from 1st of April and will extend to all districts of Kerala at the earliest. In addition, the state’s milk brand- Milma has aggressively pushed its online delivery- AM Needs more in 2 main cities which shall supply Milk, Milk products and breakfast items like bread, eggs etc. Efforts are made to extend this to other main cities too.Consumerfed’s online delivery from April 1Kerala Govt along with Police Cyberdome and a private company has launched a new Online app- ShopsApp and now asking all shops selling essential goods to mandatorily register in the ShopsApp portal. Once all the shops register, the newly formed volunteer army will be used for home delivery which will be spread across the state, not just cities alone.Shopping from local stores with home deliveryഅവശ്യ സാധനങ്ങളുടെ ലഭ്യത ഉറപ്പാക്കാൻ പൊലീസ് ആപ്The state has assured home-delivery of its essentials kits and ration supplies to the houses of poor (BPL cardholders) across the state, even in rural areas thro’ services of postal personnel as well as its own staff. Right from the day when schools where closed, personnel from Angawadi (kindergarten) and other educational departments were home delivering essentials for kids and children enrolled under each school directly.The state announced ambitious schemes to ensure HUNGER FREE Kerala. The govt clarified, not a single person in the state will starve due to the lockdownEvery family who is currently home quarantined will get Rs 1000 worth Essentials Kit of Food items from the govt for free which shall be home deliveredBPL card holders will get 35 Kg of Rice and APL cardholders will get 15 KG of Rice from Ration shops for free.Covid-19 lockdown: In a first, Kerala to home deliver food kits to the poorIn addition, a mechanism for home-delivering items from nearby shops by volunteers is plannedPolice delivering essentials to houses of elderly people who can’t go out9. Community KitchenThe govt directive is for Hunger-Free Kerala. No one will starve in KeralaFor this, the state has directed every Local Govt bodies to start Community Kitchens to cook food in bulk and provide packed food kits to people who don’t have access to cooked food. This includes homeless people, elderly people, sick people, migrant labour community and those got trapped in hostels or similar facilities overnight. All these shall be delivered to homes for a free or nominal token amount of Rs 20Meals shall be also delivered any needy just thro’ phone calls. The whole scheme has been worked out by Kudumbashree workers and packed meals costs Rs 20 only for veg and extra Rs 30 for a Chicken/Beef/Fish dishhttps://www.thenewsminute.com/article/inside-kerala-community-kitchen-during-coronavirus-lockdown-121325As of now, 748 Community Kitchens have been opened and an additional 300 will be set up soon. This service is available for lunch and dinner.So my parents who are in Kerala tried the community kitchen meal which was home delivered for Rs. 25. Rs. 30 extra if you want fish/beef/chicken. #Kerala #Alappuza @vijayanpinarayi @drthomasisaac @CMOKerala @shailajateacher pic.twitter.com/Ws2snAq5EQ— JF (@Potatodrink) March 27, 2020Kerala's Solution For Food Needs Amid Lockdown: 1,000 Community KitchensAgriculture Minister VS Sunil Kumar inspecting the facilities at Kochi’s Community kitchenKerala’s 43 lakh-strong women self-help network power community kitchens during coronavirus lockdown10. State Volunteer ArmyThe state announced an ambitious idea of forming an army of 2.45 Lakh volunteers to support various volunteering activity under a single command. Ever since the lock-down, multiple organizations are into volunteering activity causing many law & order issues and unauthorized movements. Also, there is a lack of coordination in these activities.To deal with it, the state formed a new directorate- Directorate of Social Service Force under State Youth Commission. The Directorate is to raise an army of trained volunteers to support various activities classified as 18 categories.https://www.quora.com/share/Arun-Mohan-520The key part of Volunteers is to develop emergency Isolation centres as required as movers as well as technicians. Apart from that, they are heavily required for logistics operations across the state, to supply deliveries to home, to work as care-takers and home-sitters for elderly and Covid affected patients etc.The govt announced this day before yesterday and invited online registrations thro’ its new portal- https://sannadham.kerala.gov.in/ (Sannadham in Malayalam means Volunteering) and despite of a technical glitch in registration, by now 30,000 youngsters registered for volunteering. This also includes Kerala Youth Volunteer Action Force- KYVAF (Red Shirts as known locally) designed after 2019 floods to have trained volunteer guards (5000 such trained red shirts are now available). So far only Andhra Pradesh and Kerala have formed such volunteer army.News in Asianet News about huge number of applications and responses to forming Kerala Volunteer ArmyRed Shirts in public sterilization programsKerala to set up Community Volunteer Force to support better deliveryKerala govt to form volunteer army of 2 lakh youngsters for the COVID-19 fightTechies turn volunteers to assist Kerala to contain Covid-1911. Transparency Flow of InformationThe biggest positive thing which Kerala is doing (which some proactive CMs of other states also doing) is effective and transparent flow of information.One of the important lessons learnt after Oockhi crisis of 2017 which Kerala changed since then and effectively used during floods time of 2018 and 2019 and Nipah time, was holding regular press meets and effective passing of all information available and cutting the spread of fake news.The government for the last 56 days were constantly holding daily press briefing both at State Level and district level to pass all information of the day. On the day 1 of first reporting of Covid case, a press conference was held even at an unusual hour of 1:30 AM late night to pass all information to media. Ever since that, media briefing became a mandatory thing at State level which was initially at 8 PM by Health Minister and as the state entered into Stage 2 and probably gearing for Stage 3 where multiple departments need to be involved, the baton moved to CM’s daily press meetings at 6 PM sharp.The daily press meetings of Kerala CM along with Health Minister and Chief Secretary has attracted huge public response, as a clear source of information on Covid situation.Today most of these press meetings are widely watched by entire Malayalee community, where all information of the day, all policies taken by Cabinet, all the government orders and action plan for next day are discussed with mediaPerhaps, one key tool to combat fake news is Transparency. The state issues health bulletins at every 6 hours for all affected people, all collectors are required to hold press meets or press releases on daily basis, district information officers are required to open lines to quell all public queries as well as organize programs to dispel public doubts and help the public in knowing the updates etc.Transparency Has Been Kerala’s Biggest Weapon Against the Coronavirus12. Campaign programs and quick responsesKerala government has realized the importance of massive Public Campaigns and Public relations to be used to the highest level to ensure its desired objectives reach to the public. The most successful campaign done was BREAK-THE-CHAIN campaign which has been adopted by Central Govt too and listed as a National agenda laterArun Mohan (അരുൺ മോഹൻ)'s answer to How many people participate in the campaign "break the chain" in Kerala?Arun Mohan (അരുൺ മോഹൻ)'s answer to What impact will this bring on the public as the introductory video of Kerala Police doing handwashing dance gone viral?Break The Chain Campaign was to have massive ground level sanitization and handwashing program to ensure the virus don’t spread quickly and break the chain of spread. This campaign helped the public to realize the importance of washing hands frequently and using sanitizers. Public washing kiosks came up and hand-sanitizers at the entrance of any facility became a regular thing. Videos of effective hand washes became common and the handwashing awareness video of Kerala Police became viralThe much viral Handwashing Video awareness dance by Kerala PoliceApart from campaigns, the government ensured, they are into heavy public relations. They are listening to every complaint, every grievance and standing with the public. For this govt machinery are focused on addressing public needs based on complaints reporting.For example, initially, the government didn’t give much thought about migrant labours and workers as the entire attention was over the local population. But when reports started coming in that migrant population have started fleeing to their homes and travelling on foot to their places when the lockdown came, the government machinery immediately set its attention to their problem. The govt started opening migrant workers camps across the state where they can stay and the entire cost of their food and other essentials were taken care of by the state Labour department and local MLAs. Kerala Govt even announced, they won’t use the term- Migrant Workers, rather will address them as GUEST WORKERS (Adithi Thozhilali) to honour their contributions to the state and will care themWhen Bihar’s Opposition leader Tejaswani Yadav highlighted the plight of some Bihari workers in Trivandrum over Twitter, the government quickly addressed to it and even reverted to him personally with an action taken reportI have visited the guest workers' labour camp today and spoke with workers and company representatives. The camp operates with all necessities including food and medicine.Kerala government is paying special attention to guest workers in this #COVID19 crisis. pic.twitter.com/uMsdq2NJQS— Kadakampally Surendran (@kadakampalli) March 27, 2020As of now, Kerala opened 4603 Relief camps to accommodate 1 Lakh migrant workers across the state who lost their work and got stuck in the state with no place to go. More numbers are to be expected as no one actually knows an exact number of workers. Many have fled Kerala before the lockdown came in and some haven’t turned up to government facilities too. The facilities do have all the essentials to survive until an alternative mechanism to help these people reach back to their homes is decided upon. This includes free food and sanitary requirements.Kerala opens 4603 relief camps for over one lakh migrant 'guest' workersAround 35 plus camps are opened for destitute and street dwellers across the state to be accommodated during this period.This decision has prevented a massive exodus as seen in many other North Indian states.13. Welfare schemes and supportThe state has announced a huge economic package of Rs 20,000 Crore to support people during this Covid crisis.One key feature announced was providing 2 Month social security pension (March and April) together by yesterday and today to all registered people, by delivering to their homes and via their coop bank accounts.The Govt kept its word by distributing all pensions by nowMore Photos. pic.twitter.com/H5sckkiCrL— Kadakampally Surendran (@kadakampalli) March 26, 2020How the Kerala government is shaping and implementing its Covid-19 responseKerala to disburse welfare pension for two months from next weekIn addition, the government has decided to support Tribal population by asking all tribal promoters and other officials to supply essential kits at their settlements inside the forest and educate them about the deadly virus spreadThe government announced One Month-long supplies kit per family to be supplied directly to their settlement and instructed forest guards and tribal department officials to ensure they remain insulated.Konni MLA comrade Jenish Kumar & District Collector P. B. Nooh IAS along with volunteers taking food materials to a tribal colony.It is important to work in sync during a crisis, as #Kerala has done in the past.With such common goals, we shall overcome. #KeralaFightsCorona pic.twitter.com/3uJLUW3qVR— Kadakampally Surendran (@kadakampalli) March 28, 2020Collector Pathanamthitta himself taking a load to remote forest interior as part of his personal interaction and awareness campaign among tribals of PathanamthittaThis includes conducting radio shows and public awareness videos/audios in tribal languages etc and holding tribal settlement meetings etc to ensure they listen and understand the implication of the diease.Radio shows, videos in tribal languages: How Kerala is spreading COVID-19 awarenessKerala fighting COVID-19: Awareness videos are made in various tribal languages. Local officials and health workers show these videos going to each tribal colonies.This one here is Oorali language. pic.twitter.com/VuilFvJcm5— Neethu Joseph (@neethujoseph_15) March 23, 2020How these Kerala youngsters are ensuring that the Attappadi's tribal folk are safe from COVID-19These are some measures which Kerala is doing at the moment to ensure the disease doesn’t spread much and prevent Kerala from going into a havoc situation.I am not saying, everything is perfect in Kerala. There are any shortcomings here too. But so far, Kerala is trying the best possible within its strengths, some inherent and some developed, for the betterment of community welfare.I don’t know how much of these are exclusive to Kerala. I don’t think, none of them remains and should remain exclusive to any place as we humans always try various ideas to save our fellow folks in times of mass disasters.The reason I highlighted all these, is to make a larger people aware of what we are doing to combat this virus spread and hopefully, these measures can be a guiding model for others to emulate if required, just like we too adopted many gestures from othersIn times of distress, these kind of positive stories are more of beacon of hope that humanity exists and something must be spread to all…..Let's all work together and may our humanity prevail over every disaster!!!