BENGALURU: The Karnataka health department on Thursday said along with ‘targetted’ testing, the close contacts of symptomatic COVID-19 patients will also be tested henceforth as a precautionary measure.
All those in home isolation will be visited by doctors and paramedical staff from primary health centres/urban primary health centres/Namma clinics at least once to assess their medical condition and suggest further steps for treatment, Health Commissioner Randeep said in a fresh circular issued here.
The patients being treated in the ICUs will be monitored through Tele ICU from the State headquarters as how it was done during earlier COVID-19 waves. Given the New Year celebrations, all public hospitals should gear up to establish dedicated COVID-19 isolation wards, including some ICUs, to admit and treat the affected people, Randeep said.
He directed the district death audit committees to audit COVID-19 deaths regularly and send them to the State Death Audit Committee which will submit a report with recommendations from time to time to the health commissioner. The circular directed government and private healthcare facilities and diagnostic centres not to use CT thorax scans to screen patients. Randeep said a separate directive will be issued to provide flu vaccines to all doctors and paramedical and support staff in public hospitals.
Given the detection of the COVID-19 variant, JN.1, in Bengaluru, Health Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao on Thursday said directions have been issued to officials to ensure that COVID-19 guidelines are implemented strictly and reiterated on following Covid-19 Appropriate Behaviour (CAB) during New Year celebrations. He said the new COVID-19 variant has the potential to spread fast and infect those with comorbidities which may increase the number of hospitalisation cases.