The Centre on Wednesday issued revised guidelines for home isolation for patients affected with Covid at a time when the Omicron virus is believed to have overtaken the Delta in its spread. The country also reported the first death “caused by Omicron” on Wednesday.
As per the new guidelines issued by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, patients under home isolation will stand discharged and can end isolation after seven days of testing positive for the virus and when they experience no fever for three successive days. “There is no need for re-testing after the home isolation period is over,” the Ministry added.
As per the Ministry, asymptomatic cases are laboratory-confirmed cases that are not experiencing any symptoms and have oxygen saturation at room air of more than 93%. Clinically assigned mild cases, according to the Ministry, are patients with upper respiratory tract symptoms with or without fever, without shortness of breath and having oxygen saturation at room air of more than 93%. Meanwhile, the quarantine period for home isolation patients in the national capital, who has been tested positive for Covid-19, has been reduced to 7 days from 14 days.
The Ministry on Wednesday said one death in Rajasthan was “technically” Omicron-related. Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agrawal said the deceased was an elderly person and reportedly had comorbidities like diabetes, among others. The government’s statement makes it the first confirmed death from the highly transmissible variant of the coronavirus in the country. The 73-year-old man, who was found infected with Omicron in genome sequencing and who had tested negative for the infection twice, died in an Udaipur hospital on 31 December. He died due to post-Covid pneumonia coupled with comorbidities—diabetes mellitus, hypertension and hypothyroidism—Udaipur Chief Medical Health Officer (CMHO) Dr Dinesh Kharadi said. The man was found Covid positive on 15 December and had symptoms like fever, cough and rhinitis and, therefore, was admitted to the hospital. A sample was sent for genome sequencing and the results were received on 25 December, in which he was found infected with the Omicron variant of the virus. The man had tested negative for Covid-19 twice on 21 and 25 December.
Meanwhile, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director General Dr Balram Bhargava said on Wednesday, “Omicron is the predominant circulating strain in cities in the country.
Mass gatherings should be avoided to lower the speed of this spread.” Dr Bhargava added that an RT-PCR test kit for detecting Omicron has been developed in India in partnership with Tata MD and ICMR. He further said, “Omicron detecting RT-PCR kit has been developed in partnership with Tata MD and ICMR and it has been approved by DCGI (Drugs Controller General of India). This kit will test will give results in four hours.”
As per the ministry, 2,135 cases of Omicron have been reported in the country with Maharashtra registering the maximum cases followed by Delhi. The ministry has also said that Maharashtra, West Bengal, Delhi, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Jharkhand and Gujarat are states of concern where there has been a rise in Covid-19 cases. “28 districts in the country are reporting more than 10% weekly positivity,” Ministry has said. Notably, India on Wednesday reported 58,097 fresh Covid cases and 534 deaths, while on Tuesday, the country had recorded 37,379 new Covid cases and 124 deaths.