The Centre on Tuesday alerted the states and UTs on Omicron, stating that the new Covid-19 variant is three times more transmissible than the highly infectious Delta variant. In a letter to the states/UTs, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan advised the states to activate war rooms, keep analysing all trends and surges, no matter how small and keep taking proactive action at the district or local levels.
“Based on current scientific evidence, the VoC (Variant of Concern) Omicron is at least 3 times more transmissible than the Delta VOC. Besides, the Delta VOC is still present in different parts of the country. Hence, even greater foresight, data analysis, dynamic decision making and strict & prompt containment action is required at the local and district level. The decision making at the State/UT and district level must be very prompt and focused,” the letter stated.
The Centre asked the states to focus on the “strategic areas of intervention”, including containment, testing, tracking, surveillance, clinical management, vaccination and following Covid-appropriate norms.
Regarding containment, Bhushan advised the states to impose night curfew, regulate large public gatherings, marriages and funerals, besides limiting the number of people going to offices or availing public transport. “In case of all new clusters of Covid-positive cases, prompt notification of ‘Containment Zones’, ‘Buffer Zones’ should be done, strict perimeter control of Containment Zone as per extant guidelines must be ensured. All cluster samples must be sent to INSACOG Labs for Genome Sequencing without delay,” he said.
The Centre further asked the states to strengthen health infrastructure in case of a sudden surge of infections and stressed increasing bed capacity, ambulances, “mechanism for seamless shifting of patients, availability and operational readiness of oxygen equipment, a buffer stock of drugs”.
The Union health secretary also stressed 100% vaccination coverage across states, with a special focus on those districts where the first and second dose coverage is less than the national average. “The door-to-door vaccination campaign needs to be strengthened,” he added.
India at present has 200 cases of the Omicron variant, with Maharashtra and Delhi recording 54 cases each. Telangana has 20 cases, Karnataka 19, Rajasthan 18, Kerala 15 and Gujarat 14 cases.
The country on Tuesday recorded 5,326 new cases, its lowest in 581 days. The daily rise in the new cases has been recorded below 15,000 for the last 54 days now. The active Covid cases have dipped to 79,097, which is 0.23 percent of the total infections – the lowest since March 2020. India’s recovery rate has also improved to 98.40 per cent, which is the highest since March 2020.
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