Still unexplained
The hunt for the origins of Covid-19 has for the past four years been a tangled web of politics, power struggles, and international finger-pointing.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) today issued Covid19 guidelines for May, advising States and UTs to implement the Health Ministry’s advisory to go for local containment areas in districts reporting more than 10 per cent positivity rate.
Adopting the 25 April advisory of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) for its latest guidelines, the MHA said two criteria are to be considered for intensive action and local containment measures ~ test positivity of 10 per cent or more in the last one week, and bed occupancy of more than 60 per cent on either oxygen supported or ICU beds.
As per the Health Ministry advisory: “Local containment primarily focused on restricting intermingling of people is to be undertaken for a period of 14 days for breaking the chain of transmission duly following epidemiological principles,” the MHA said.
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The local containment will focus on three strategic areas of intervention, which include Containment, Clinical Management and Community Engagement, the advisory said. The Union health ministry also issued the “Revised guidelines for home isolation of mild/asymptomatic Covid19 cases”, in which it advised against attempting to procure or administer Remdesivir injections at home, underlining that it should be administered only in a hospital setting. The guidelines stated that systemic oral steroids are not indicated in mild cases.
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