Kerala's Model: Unraveling the Interplay between Election Dynamics and COVID-19 Propagation for International Insights

This chapter evaluate the influence of elections conducted during the period, on a daily number of Covid-19 incidence (DNC) in Kerala, India. The global pandemic brought on by SARS-Cov-2 and its variations strikes in waves. When the second wave of COVID-19 threatened, Kerala, an Indian state, took note and effectively contained the first wave. The study was a retrospective cross-sectional study to assess the effect of elections, election models and campaign styles on COVID-19 transmission dynamics in Kerala between 1st October 2020 and 5th May 2021.

The test positivity (TPR) and daily number of cases (DNC) collected from governmental websites of Kerala, India and COVID-19 dashboards entered in MS Excel 2007 and analyzed using IBM SPSS version 25.

The findings showed that the daily number of COVID-19 cases increased after both local body and assembly elections, but a statistically significant increase was found after the assembly election [mean difference= 1069 (357.047-1782.419) at p=0.002 from the pre-election period]. The observance of the election code of conduct and COVID protocols are the duties of the citizens in such pandemics. However, elections with their campaigns do enhance the spread of the pandemic. The only formula is to follow the protocols strictly.

The study found that confining campaigns to the local area and holding elections in phases in accordance with COVID guidelines had a measurable beneficial impact on preventing the spread of the epidemic. With election commissions taking a firm stand, and political parties conforming to the required norms, the conduct of elections anywhere is possible even in pandemic times.