BENGALURU: All health workers including paramedical and nursing staff, Group D workers and doctors coming under the Health and Medical Education departments will be administered a flu vaccine, Health Minister Dinesh Gundurao announced on Tuesday.
Briefing the media after chairing a meeting of the cabinet subcommittee with the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), the minister said an audit will be conducted into the seven deaths so far among Covid-19 patients. Of the 60 samples sent on Monday, the JN.1 variant has been detected in 34 samples, but there is no cause for worry, he said.
Pointing out that testing has been raised to 5,000 from today, he said there are 436 active cases in the state and 400 are in home isolation while 36 are in hospitals. Of them, seven are in ICUs. Those in home isolation will be tracked to monitor their health, the minister added.
Dinesh Gundurao said steps are already being taken to ensure availability of oxygen and ICU beds and added that four mobile containers will be purchased to make oxygen available in case of emergencies. Preventive doses will be administered to those who have not taken it and 30,000 Corbevax doses will be purchased from the Centre. Sewage sampling will also be done in Bengaluru and other districts, he added.
Stating that there will be no restrictions for New Year, the health minister reiterated that those aged over 60 and those with comorbidities should wear masks. “It is also advisable to wear masks in crowded places. If children show any symptoms, they should not be sent to school and should get tested. Those infected should also be given one week’s leave and fresh guidelines will be issued soon. Rates for testing and CT scans in private hospitals will be fixed by a committee to prevent fleecing of patients. There will also be no screening of international arrivals at airports”, he said.
The minister said the meeting also discussed release of funds to control the spread of Covid-19 and to open a genome sequencing lab in Bengaluru. Apart from Bengaluru, the health authorities have been asked to increase testing in Mysuru and Dakshina Kannada. It was also decided to take more samples from clusters, he added.
Meanwhile, Karnataka has recorded the second highest number of active cases in the country at 436. Kerala tops the list with 3,096 cases, Maharashtra (168), Tamil Nadu (139), Gujarat (56), Telangana (55) and Goa (37). The number of cases in Karnataka has jumped in just one week. The active case count on December 18 was 58 which jumped to 436 on December 25. Similarly, the daily positivity rose from 10 cases on December 12 to 125 on December 25.