Omicron threat: Telangana cancels all holidays for health staff

Hyderabad: Amidst the exponential rise of Covid cases due to Omicron, Telangana Director of Public Health G Srinivasa Rao on Thursday declared that all the holidays are being cancelled for health staff in the state until further notice from the Health Department.

The health director, while addressing a press conference, announced that there will be no lockdown in the state.

The following are the important points he addresed during the press conference:

• “Currently, Only 2.3 percent of all government and private beds are occupied in the state. There is no increase in hospitalization and no death has been reported due to Omicron.”

• “We are seeing that many people who turned covid positive are getting hospitalized even without any symptoms. Only people with oxygen levels under 93 are required to get hospitalized,” he said.

• He informed the Private hospitals in the state that they will be directly penalised without any prior warning this time if found charging patients unnecessarily and doing unnecessary tests. “We have requested you for two waves, this time we will directly penalise,” he asserted.

• Close to 27000 beds are readied as part of the preparation to the third wave. The Hon’ble health minister has reviewed the whole situation regarding readiness via video conference. The health department is fully ready to face this third wave.

• The DPH has encouraged people to invest in Home Rapid Antigen Kits and test immediately if slightest of the symptoms appear. “RAT Kits are available in plenty in the PHC’s as well. The state government has kept ready 2 crore RAT kits and 1 crore Home isolation kits,” he informed.

• “We are estimating 70 percent of all cases to be caused by the Omicron variant. Its impossible to conduct genome sequencing with all of them. Public Health measures for all the variants is the same.”

• The DPH has requested all the political parties to cancel all public activites for the next 4 weeks. “I urge all your cadre to halt in public interest,” he said.

• The Director has striked down the possibilities of announcing a lockdown. “At present, we will use other methods to control the pandemic. Lockdowns can impact livelihood and work for crores of citizens,” he said.

• “COVID and fever clinics to begin working in all hospitals from January 6th. A fever survey will soon be conducted.”

• Currently, 71 per cent of the adult population is double vaccinated. The District Medical Health Officers (DMHO) have been directed to complete the rest by the 26th of January.