Tamil Nadu’s Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine has issued new guidelines for home isolation and discharge due to a sudden surge in Covid-19 cases and Omicron variant.
Patients eligible for home isolation will be those who have taken two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, no symptoms, no comorbidity, younger than 50 years with mild symptoms. Further, lab-confirmed cases not experiencing any symptoms and having oxygen saturation at room air of more than 94 per cent; the patient should be clinically assigned as mild/asymptomatic case by treating medical office and such cases should have the requisite facility at their residence for self-isolation and for quarantining the family contacts.
A caregiver should be available to provide care on a 24/7 basis. If home isolation is not possible for pregnant women, persons more than 65 years old, the person with routine medication should be sent to Covid Care Centre.
Patients under home isolation will be discharged and end isolation after at least five days have passed from the onset of the symptoms (or from the date of sampling asymptomatic cases) and no fever for consecutive three days. There is no need for testing.
Severe cases will be discharged only after clinical recovery, and patients tested negative once by RT-PCR (after resolution of symptoms), said the new guidelines.
Spike in new cases
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, new coronavirus cases in Tamil Nadu spiked to 4,862 as against 2,731 on Tuesday. Chennai led the spike by reporting 2,481 new cases against 1,489 on Tuesday. The number of samples tested also increased, thus leading to more cases
After 688 patients were discharged, the number of active cases stood at 16,577. There were nine deaths and 1,17,611 samples tested.
In Chengalpattu district, the number of new cases was 596; in Coimbatore, it was 259; in Tiruvallur 209 and Kancheepuram 127.
Out of the 121 Omicron cases reported in the State, 110 have been discharged; 8 under admission and 3 cases cross Notified to Kerala, Puducherry & Andhra Pradesh, according to State government data.