Hyderabad: The current Covid-19 situation in the state, especially after the arrival of the Omicron variant, which is already spreading in the community, renders any kind of physical containment measures useless, opined the director of public health & family welfare Dr G Srinivasa Rao here on Thursday.
He said that on their part the government has done everything it can and is geared up to face any eventuality as the state heads into a third wave of Covid.
“Our hospitals are ready and so is our staff; we are well-stocked with medicines, have enough oxygen support and ICU beds, and home isolation kits. It is now up to the people to play their part by wearing masks, following all safety precautions and helping the government in containing the spread of Omicron,” he said.
He was speaking to reporters after Telangana reported five more cases of Covid-19 infections caused by the Omicron variant. It has taken the total number of cases in the state to 67. Of them, as on Thursday, 22 have recovered while the remaining persons are undergoing treatment.
Of the five new cases, one has arrived from an at-risk country, while four were arrivals from not-at-risk countries. The number of people who were infected through local or community transmission continued to stay at four, as per the Covid bulletin issued by the department.
Dr Rao also made it clear that the state health department will treat the Omicron variant infected cases as Covid cases.
He pointed out that Telangana might even do away with separately reporting Omicron cases because it does not matter which variant a person is infected with as treatment for all Covid cases remains the same. Also, testing hundreds or thousands of samples was simply not possible in the absence of the required facilities. So the focus will be on treatment and not necessarily on figuring out which variant a person is infected with, he said.
