Set up Covid control rooms: Centre to states

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Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 6

The Covid pandemic continued to expand with the daily new cases passing one lakh by Thursday night, the highest in seven months.

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The Health Ministry has written to states/UTs to prepare for administering booster doses as a precautionary measure to frontline and health workers and those above 60 years with comorbidities from January 10. Private hospitals have been told to set up vaccination centres for their staff. TNS

Hospitalisation low

The R naught factor, the number of persons one patient of Covid can infect, continued to soar beyond what was seen during the second wave peak, but the government says the hospitalisation is still low.

The country had recorded 91,702 Covid cases on June 10, 2021. The today’s tally is set to make the ongoing third wave steeper than the second which hit India in May last.

At 10 am today, daily new cases recorded by the Health Ministry were 90,928 as against 58,097 cases yesterday — a rise of 56.5 per cent in a day. The numbers of new cases crossed one lakh by tonight.

Active cases increased to 2,85,401 — nearing the three lakh mark — with the burden on the health system rising gradually.

Even the single day Omicron tally recorded today was the highest so far at 495, with total cases of the variant surging to 2,630.

Maharashtra has the highest Omicron burden at 797, Delhi 465, Rajasthan 236, Kerala 234, Karnataka 226, Gujarat 204 and Tamil Nadu 121.

The cumulative caseload reached 3,51,09, with deaths reaching 4,82,876 after 325 fatalities today.

As cases rose, the Health Ministry wrote to states to set up control rooms at the district and sub-district level to ensure easy access to ambulance services and to book hospital beds.

The control rooms will be responsible to make outbound calls to the patients under home isolation and regularly monitor their status, the ministry said.

“The exercise of re-establishment of district and sub-district level control rooms should have begun by now,” Arti Ahuja, Additional Secretary, Health wrote to states.

The letter said control rooms must have adequate staff with medical doctors, counsellors and volunteers. The control rooms are meant to ensure links of the health system with the patients recovering in home isolation.

The control rooms should monitor the availability of beds across health facilities and should counsel patients and attendants to avail the services baased on symptoms. Dedicated ambulances must be allotted to each control room based on area caseload.

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry has asked central government health institution chiefs, including those of AIIMS and PGI in Chandigarh, to prepare in the wake of surging Covid case.

“It is expected that institutes would have started the exercise of repurposing the hospital beds for managing Covid cases to ensure maximum preparedness against any potential surge in cases,” it said.