Covid Three is Here. The random cases are just a build-up to the massive surge in February 2022, predicted by IIT Kanpur. However, is the Indian government prepared?
According to the 2021 Global Health Security (GHS) Index released December 8, countries across income levels, including India, are unprepared to meet future epidemic and pandemic threats.
The GHS Index assesses countries across six categories — prevention, detection and reporting, rapid response, health system, compliance with international norms and risk environment. India’s ranking has slipped due to a slow response to such situations. It performed poorly under “rapid response” post the second wave. As such, India’s score is down 11.8 points since 2019. The current 30.3 is much lower than the poor global average of 37.6.
The score has been arrived at based on data collected from August 2020-June 2021. Between April and June 2021, India experienced the devastating second wave that overwhelmed the healthcare system. While the hospitals struggled to cope, critical drugs and oxygen were in short supply.
The Union government on December 10 acknowledged that Omicron may lead to a fresh surge. The matter was raised on several occasions in both Houses during the winter session. In the meantime, India’s medical oxygen capacity, essential for serious COVID-19 patients has increased nearly 28 per cent between October 2020 and November 2021.
There has been an increase in oxygen capacity to 8,778 tonnes / day from 6,876 tonnes / day in November 2021, Bharati Pravin Pawar, minister of state in the Union health ministry told Lok Sabha December 3. The Union government has sanctioned 1,563 Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) oxygen generation plants. PSA oxygen plants generate medical-grade oxygen. These include 1,225 PSA plants that have been installed and commissioned under PM CARES Fund in every district of the country, claimed Pawar.
Nearly 34 per cent of these have been commissioned in four states — Uttar Pradesh (128), Madhya Pradesh (88), Tamil Nadu (70), Maharashtra (68) and Bihar (62). At least 25 PSA oxygen plants have been commissioned in the national capital Delhi.
Ms Pawar informed that states have been asked to install PSA plants in public health facilities and facilitate the installation of PSA plants in private health facilities. The required rates of oxygen flow in a non-intensive care unit (ICU) and ICU setting is 10 and 24 litres per minute per day per case. This means that these plants can support more than 100,000 beds a day.
Online digital solutions such as the Oxygen Demand Aggregation system (ODAS) and Oxygen Digital Tracking System (ODTS) have been developed to ascertain the demand for medical oxygen from all medical facilities and to track their transportation. ODTS helps track the daily allocations of oxygen, their dispatch and deliveries, including the movement of oxygen tankers.
Omi Update as on Dec 27:
At least 578 Omicron cases were reported from 19 states/ UTs. Delhi with 142 cases tops the chart, followed by Maharashtra (141) and Kerala (57). Night curfewshave been imposed by governments in Assam, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh amid the surge.
Maharashtra, among the worst-hit states, has prohibited a gathering of more than five people between 9 pm and 6 am. Rajesh Tope, state health minister, in a media report in November, opined that the third wave was expected to be mild.
Meanwhile, in the NCR, restaurants and gyms have been allowed to operate at 50 per cent capacity. The positivity rate increased from 0.55 per cent on December 26 to 0.68 per cent on Dec 27. The Delhi government is likely to review the situation on Dec 28.
So far, the maximum number of cases have been reported from Delhi. The coronavirus dashboard of the state health department flashes 13,418 beds allotted for COVID-19.
The south state of Andhra Pradesh claimed to have spent about Rs 8,000 crore on multiple interventions for prevention, mitigation and management of COVID-19. The state government has set up oxygen generation plants in 140 hospitals, which would be made available by December 15, said chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy.
The Central Drugs and Standard Control Organization has, granted permissions to six COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers. So far, Covishield, Covaxin and Sputnik are used for the jabs.
On December 25, 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the next step: India will start vaccinating children between 15 and 18 years from January 3. In India, people above 60 years of age with co-morbidities and frontline workers will be allowed to the booster dose from January 10, 2022.
