People told to be wary of Omicron
State health officials issued a dire warning over the fast-spreading Omicron variant. “If you actually test everyone, one in three persons in the city will test positive for Covid-19,” a senior health department official told Deccan Chronicle on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, in an extremely disturbing development, health officials said they were seeing more and more admissions into government hospitals of Covid-19 patients, who appear to have caught the disease while being treated at private hospitals for other serious ailments.
“We are seeing patients coming to us after testing Covid positive at private hospitals. In every case, the patient was in a hospital for 10 days or more, and were Covid negative when admitted. But during the course of the treatment, they caught Covid and private hospitals are sending them to us,” a senior doctor at a government hospital said.
Many private hospitals are fast turning into Covid breeding centres, particularly because of closed loop air flow due to air-conditioning. There is nowhere for the virus to go and it is spreading to patients who otherwise would have not caught it. Most hospitals do not have any ventilation and those that are air-conditioned, lack filtration systems that can stop the virus from spreading.
Dr M. Raja Rao, superintendent of Gandhi Hospital urged people to absolutely and without fail follow every Covid safety protocol. “People, just because 90 per cent or more of Omicron Covid cases are asymptomatic, or mildly symptomatic, stopped caring. Little do they realise that they are passing it on to vulnerable, whether in their families, or in their neighbourhood, or to those who they come into contact with,” he said.
He also said this was not the time for people to rush to hospitals for treatment unless absolutely required. “Only those who really need to be in hospitals should seek this option but only after advice from their doctors. If something can be treated without being admitted to a hospital, then this is the option people should pick,” he said.