As Kerala braces for yet another bout of LDF rule after Friday’s swearing-in ceremony, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s resolve to utilise the services of medical students to tackle the record surge of coronavirus will be generally welcomed.

And not the least by the Centre and several state governments that had generally accorded the short shrift to the medical fraternity during last year’s outbreak. Political leaders and bureaucrats were in the vanguard and not merely in West Bengal.

Not wholly unrelated, therefore, is Mamata Banerjee’s signal of intent on Thursday to induct MBBS passouts and interns as warriors in the daunting battle against coronavirus. Stringent measures, in Mr Vijayan’s reckoning, are direly imperative to tackle the dreaded disease. Given their post MBBS internship, if not expertise generally, the students should to an extent be able to attend to the burgeoning patients, more than what the political class had done in Kerala or any other state for that matter. In many if not most states, the governments have quite totally bumbled. It is now pretty obvious that the born-again Vijayan government is proceeding on a fairly structured agenda.

It thus comes about that medical students will be included in the maritime state’s Rapid Response Teams. Temporary registration will be provided to students who have completed the course. In view of the surge, the total requirement of medical oxygen in Kerala is rising almost each day.

The students must of necessity be provided with the fundamental infrastructure, primarily oxygen for patients and vaccines as a preventive. Rightly has Mr Vijayan stressed the need to increase the buffer storage of oxygen in view of the fast depleting stock in parallel to the ballooning daily demand.

This can be contextualised with the Chief Minister’s request to the Centre to provide 1000 tonnes of imported Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO), 50 lakh doses of Covishield and 25 lakh doses of Covaxin vaccines to Kerala.

The state’s decision on Wednesday to take the help of medical students coincides with the highest single-day spike of 41,953 Covid cases, indeed raising the caseload to a frightful 17,43,932.

This was in parallel to the test positivity rate of 25.69 per cent. The death toll during the day touched 5565, with as many as 58 deaths reported on Wednesday alone.

The Prime Minister is reported to have appreciated the signal efforts of the healthcare staff and nursing sisters for setting an example in reducing vaccine wastage in Kerala. He now needs to ensure the supply of vaccines and oxygen throughout the country, verily the two fundamental requirements.

Kerala has set the trend by inducting medical students in the battle against coronavirus. There are other such initiatives that must be taken up, and adopted by other states as well.