COVID-19: Union Health Ministry revises discharge policy; here's all you need to know

The Union Health Ministry on Wednesday said it has revised the discharge policy with severity categorised into mild and moderate cases after a review meeting by Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the COVID-19 situation in the country.

As per the new policy, a ‘mild case discharge’ means after at least 7 days from testing positive and non-emergency for three successive days. There is no need for testing prior to discharge.

A ‘moderate case discharge’ is when there is a resolution of symptoms, the patient maintains O2 saturation > 93% for 3 successive days (without O2). Such patients can be discharged.

Meanwhile, as many as 300 districts in India are reporting weekly case positivity of more than 5 per cent with Maharashtra, West Bengal, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Gujarat emerging as states of concern, the Union government said.

Addressing a press conference, Joint Secretary in Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said a sharp rise in COVID-19 infections has been noted in India with the case positivity climbing to 11.05 per cent on Wednesday from 1.1 per cent on December 30.

Concurrently, Covid cases have been rising globally with January 10 recording the highest ever single-day rise of 31.59 lakh cases worldwide, he said.

The official said that currently, 300 districts in India are reporting weekly case positivity of more than 5 per cent.

Informing the press conference that 19 states have over 10,000 active Covid cases, Agarwal said Maharashtra, West Bengal, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Gujarat are emerging as states of concern due to rise in Covid cases there.

Stressing on the importance of getting inoculated, he quoted the World Health Organisation to say that vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization appears to be substantially higher than against symptomatic COVID-19 disease.

India added 1,94,720 new infections to its tally of COVID-19 cases pushing it to 3,60,70,510, according to the Union Health Ministry data on Wednesday.

Active cases have increased to 9,55,319, the highest in 211 days, while the death toll has climbed to 4,84,655 with 442 fresh fatalities. Of the total 4,868 cases of the Omicron variant, 1,805 people have recovered or migrated so far.

(With PTI inputs)

Published on: Wednesday, January 12, 2022, 05:32 PM IST