Kerala's Health Minister K.K. Shailaja has been chosen by Prospect Magazine, UK, as the `Top Thinker of the Year 2020'. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern came in at second place.
Crediting Shailaja for flattening the COVID-19 curve in Kerala and for securing a low fatality rate in the state, the magazine said that Shailaja was the "right woman in the right place.''
Cases and deaths were kept remarkably low into the summer, although just as it drew to a close, they began to grow fast—just as Shailaja had warned they would. Still, as we go to press, confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the state—which has average incomes an order of magnitude lower than Britain’s, and just over half the population—were not yet 1 per cent of ours."
"Hopefully, Shailaja’s masterclass in public administration will boost the odds in the next and more difficult phase,'' says the Prospect Magazine.
When COVID-19 was still a “China story” in January, she not only accurately foresaw its inevitable arrival, but also fully grasped the implications, it says and adds that she rapidly got the WHO’s full “test, trace and isolate” drill implemented in the state, and bought crucial time by getting a grip of the airports, and containing the first cases to arrive on Chinese flights.
"Of course, the virus returned, but there was rigorous surveillance and quarantine—sometimes in makeshift structures. The public messages have been consistent, and Shailaja follows them to the letter, with social distancing in all official meetings (which can go on until 10pm) and restricting herself to a Zoom-only relationship with her grandchildren,'' the magazine said in its press note.
"So deft was her handling of a 2018 outbreak of the deadly Nipah disease that it was commemorated in a film, Virus," it said.
Praising the New Zealand Prime minister, who earned the second prize, the magazine said that her governing “ethos of kindness” was drawing interest as a refreshing (if hazy) alternative to neo-liberalism even before it showed practical results in keeping a lid on the crisis.