She denied allegations of inadequate testing, low death count reporting Kerala raised a strong strategy-based defence against COVID-19 and the State can be proud of the fact that it has saved innumerable lives by ensuring that the peak of the epidemic was delayed and that the number of patients never went beyond the health system’s surge capacity, Health Minister K.K. Shylaja has said. The State had efficiently implemented the test, trace, quarantine and treat strategy, and had adopted the policy of hospitalising patients early so that they could be managed before the complications of COVID-19 set in. This policy of early hospitalisation and management was what helped the State keep its COVID-19 case fatality down at 0.4%, she added.