New Delhi: A study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has claimed that districts that were severely affected by the second wave of COVID-19 may not witness equally intense third wave. Experts from the apex medical body asked states to conduct district-level heterogeneity assessments — that include studying variations in spread and population, to plan health measures based on local data.
“Talking about a third wave across the entire state may not be helpful as all districts didn’t experience the second wave uniformly. We need district-level infection control and management programmes,” Times of India quoted Samiran Panda, senior epidemiologist and head of ICMR’s Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases Division as saying.
He asserted that states like Maharashtra, which was badly hit during the second wave, should look into district-level heterogeneity to formulate region and population appropriate responses.
Meanwhile, the Centre urged the states witnessing an upsurge in infections and positivity to consider strict restrictions to prevent or curtail people’s movement and crowding. It highlighted that 46 districts are showing more than 10 per cent positivity rate while another 53 are showing positivity between five and 10 per cent.
The Health Ministry said it was forcefully underlined that any laxity at this stage will result in the deterioration of the situation in these districts. Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan chaired a high-level meeting on Saturday to review the COVID-19 situation in Kerala, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Assam, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Andhra Pradesh and Manipur.
“All districts reporting positivity rate of more than 10 per cent in the last few weeks need to consider strict restrictions to prevent/curtail the movement of people, formation of crowds and intermingling of people to prevent the spread of infection.”
Noting that more than 80 per cent of active cases in these states are reported to be in home isolation, it said there is a need to effectively and strictly monitor these cases so that they do not meet other people and spread the infection.
“The people in home isolation should be effectively monitored in such a manner to ensure that those who require hospitalization are seamlessly transferred for timely clinical treatment. Detailed standard operating procedure covering various facets of effective clinical management of COVID-19 patients in hospitals have been earlier shared with the states for prompt shifting and effective hospital management,” the Centre told states.
The ministry also asked states to focus on those districts where the positivity rate is less than 10 per cent, so as to protect these districts and the populations by focusing on saturation of vaccination there.
source https://www.india.com/news/world/districts-severely-hit-by-2nd-wave-may-not-see-intense-3rd-wave-claims-icmr-study-4856005/
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