Mock drills at hospitals from tomorrow to ensure readiness to fight Covid: K’taka Health Minister

According to the directive from the Union Health Ministry, mock drills would be held at all government hospitals to ensure readiness of health infrastructure to fight Covid-19, said Karnataka’s minister of health, K Sudhakar.

“It will be done to ensure that all infrastructure we had installed during earlier waves of COVID-19 including Oxygen plants and Oxygen generators are ready to use,” Sudhakar said while speaking to the media after participating in the video conference of the health ministers of all the states conducted by the Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya. The minister further said, “The number of active cases in India is 0.03% at present while 5 lakh to 6 lakh new COVID-19 cases are being detected in the world every day and 80% of the new cases are appearing in 10 countries including China, Japan, Taiwan, America, Europe and New Zealand.”

According to the minister, a major reason for the lower number of cases in the country is that the entire population of our country has received two doses of the vaccine.

“Additionally, Indians also have better natural immunity. Due to this, we are in a better position to fight the spread of COVID-19,” he added.

“According to a report by an American organization, around 10 lakh people could potentially die from COVID-19 in China alone in the next year. China’s vaccine, vaccination process, people’s cautiousness level, senior/elderly population and their health problems could be the factors for this,” Minister Sudhakar said.

Sudhakar further requested to people be more vigilant and get their booster doses as soon as possible as COVID-19 is still not completely eliminated.

He said that there is a stock of 8 to 10 lakh vaccines in the state and people are advised to take them voluntarily.

The state government has already taken several precautionary measures in the meeting held under the leadership of Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Thursday.

“Positive cases will be sent for compulsory genomic sequencing to track new variants. Booster doses will be given to senior citizens on priority. 2% of international passengers are being randomly tested at airports. We have suggested that the process of international passengers uploading negative RTPCR certificates not older than 72 hours from the date of travel through Air Suvidha should be restarted. People should take all precautionary measures including wearing masks,” K Sudhakar further said.