'Activate war rooms, emergency operation centres': Centre's Omicron advisory to states

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Tuesday said there were initial signs of surge of

Covid-19

cases and increased detection of Omicron variant and asked all states to "activate war rooms".

"Omicron is at least 3 times more transmissible than Delta," Union health secretary

Rajesh Bhushan

wrote to all states and Union territories.

The Centre's advisory to the states called for greater foresight and dynamic decision making.

Here are the key points of Centre's advisory to the states:
Containment:
Imposition of night curfew, strict regulation of large gatherings, curtailing numbers in marriages and funerals, restricting numbers in offices, industries, public transport etc.

In case of all new clusters of

Covid

positive cases, prompt notification of “Containment Zones”, “Buffer Zones” should be done, strict perimeter control of Containment Zone as per extant guidelines must be ensured. All cluster samples must be sent to INSACOG Labs for Genome Sequencing without delay.

Testing and surveillance:
Testing as per ICMR and MoHFW guidelines, door to door case search, testing of all SARI/ILI and vulnerable/co-morbid people, ensuring right proportion of RT-PCR tests in total tests being conducted daily, contact tracing of all Covid positive persons & their timely testing, utilising the access to “AIR SUVIDHA” Portal by State

Surveillance Officers

(SSOs) & District Surveillance Officers (DSOs) to monitor the international passengers who have arrived in their States & Districts etc.

Clinical management:
Increase bed capacity, other logistics like ambulances, mechanism for seamless shifting of patients, availability and operational readiness of oxygen equipment, a buffer stock of drugs to be ensured by prompt utilization of Emergency Covid Response Package (ECRP-II) funds released by Central government and other available resources etc.

The existing National Clinical Management Protocol remains unchanged for Omicron.

Ensure stringent enforcement of home isolation as per extant guidelines. This would include among others:
Customised kit for persons undergoing home isolation, their regular monitoring through call centers as well as home visits etc. This will be a very critical activity in the days to come specially to ensure that persons under home isolation do not spread the virus to others in view of its higher transmissibility.

Vaccination:
Ensure 100% coverage of left out first and second dose eligible beneficiaries in an accelerated manner. Special focus is to be given to those districts where the first & second dose coverage is less than the national average. The door-to-door vaccination campaign needs to be strengthened.

Community engagement and Covid appropriate behaviour:
Ensure advance engagement and information so that there is no misinformation or panic, transparent communication on hospital and testing infrastructure availability, regular press briefings etc.

Participation of community backed by strict enforcement is necessary for ensuring Covid appropriate behaviour.

Kindly activate the War rooms/EOCs and keep analyzing all trends and surges, no matter how small and keep taking proactive action at the district/local level.

Regular reviews with field officers and proactive action in this regard will definitely control the spread of infection and flatten the curve.

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