District Health Officer outlines strategy if COVID positive cases increase beyond 100

Mysore/Mysuru: The War Rooms, helplines, system of bed availability at the touch of a button, extra ICU/ HDU beds at hospitals, computer-controlled data flow, home isolation teams and COVID Care Centres that existed during the killer second wave would be revived in case of more fresh infections.

The entire system can be set up within a span of two to three days and the previous experience of handling uncontrolled rush and panic in all the areas — infection, bed allotment, helpline management, contact tracing and also home isolation management — will come in handy to the officers and volunteers.

Speaking to Star of Mysore, District Health Officer (DHO) Dr. K.H. Prasad said that as of now, opening of war rooms, helplines and COVID Care Centres was not necessary as Mysuru’s positivity rate is below 0.1 percent. “If at all cases increase and if Omicron cases are spotted or on the rise, we are ready to open all the facilities like in the second wave. They can be stepped up within two to three days,” he said.

The administration is ready to ramp up facilities in case positive numbers cross 100. Now on an average, 25-30 cases are detected and they are managed at District Hospital that has 250 beds.

Numbers in Mysuru

As per the media bulletin released by the District Administration yesterday, the total number of persons isolated in the home for 7 days is 756 while 81 have been isolated in dedicated Government Hospitals and 199 are in home isolation, taking the total isolated persons’ number to 303.

Yesterday, 29 have tested positive, 41 have been discharged and one death has been reported. Ever since the pandemic began, 2,431 people have lost their lives to the virus in Mysuru. 

“There are 250 beds at the District Hospital where all the cases are being treated now and out of this, 50 beds are ICU beds, 100 are oxygenated and 100 are normal ones. In the district, there are 5,346 beds including Government and Private, 1,700 oxygenated beds, 208 ICU beds and 245 ventilators,” Dr. Prasad revealed.

COVID Care Centres, oxygen

If number of cases increases, all 5,346 beds will be utilised and in addition, COVID Care Centres will be opened. “In 2nd wave, we had 8,000 beds in COVID Care Centres and now we can have more. In case the cases increase, the Karnataka State Open University (KSOU) COVID Care Centre near Mandakalli on Mysuru-Nanjangud Road will be opened that has 1,000 beds. We can also reserve the Seth Mohandas Tulsidas (SMT) Hospital on JLB Road to accommodate infected pregnant women,” he added.

On the oxygen front, the DHO said that Mysuru is self-reliant and there was no need to get oxygen from outside. There are 10 oxygen-generating plants here and two more will be readied at Periyapatna and H.D. Kote within the next fortnight, he added.

Cases show slight increase in Mysuru

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan has shot off a letter to top health officials of Karnataka amidst Omicron concerns and has raised the increase in weekly cases in the past one week. He has asked the officials to take appropriate measures to control the spread of the disease and reduce fatalities.

In a letter to Principal Secretary Karnataka T.K. Anil Kumar, the Health Secretary drew attention towards the increase in cases in the last one week in some of the districts including Mysuru. The letter states that the difference in percentage of cases went up to 16.49 percent in Mysuru from Nov. 26 to Dec. 2 as against the preceding week from Nov. 19 to 25. Mysuru saw the spike to 219 cases in the week ending Dec. 2 while previous week it was 188 cases.