The state government on Friday issued a discharge policy for recovered Covid patients with the Omicron variant. State Health Commissioner D Randeep instructed the district and BBMP health authorities to follow the discharge policy ‘for the institutionally isolated Covid-19 (Omicron variant) patients until further orders.’
In mild, moderate and severe cases (including immunocompromised HIV patients, transplant recipients, malignancy), the patient can be discharged after 10 days of symptom onset if there is no fever, breathlessness or any other symptom for the last three consecutive days before discharge without antipyretics (drug used to prevent or reduce fever).
The patient has to maintain saturation above 95% for the last four consecutive days without oxygen support. There should be resolution of clinical signs and symptoms based on the report of investigations.
Patients should undergo repeat tests for inflammatory markers like S Ferritin, S.LDH, D-Dimer, and CRP at the time of discharge. These should be in the normal range or decreasing trend. Patients shall be discharged only after two negative RT-PCR reports 24 hours apart. If the report is positive, the swab test shall be repeated after 48 hours.
At the time of discharge, the patient shall be advised to quarantine himself at home and self-monitor health for further seven days. The district surveillance officer (DSO) shall follow up these persons at their homes for their health status. They shall be followed up by the tele-monitoring team in the community and by using the quarantine app.
In home quarantine, RT-PCR is repeated on the sixth day of home quarantine, if negative, patients can be released from home quarantine. All patients advised home quarantine after discharge need to watch for onset of any new symptoms like fever, cough, breathlessness, chest pain, weakness, etc. If any of these are found, they are immediately advised to consult the doctor/physician.
If there’s no facility for home quarantine, institutional quarantine is advised.
Since the circular does not mention Omicron suspects who are awaiting genomic sequencing results, Dr K Ravi, Professor of Medicine, and Chairman of the State Covid-19 Clinical Expert Committee clarified to DH saying, “Even Omicron suspects who test Covid positive at the airport will be sent to designated hospitals. If they test Omicron positive, they will stay back at the hospital, if they test negative, the existing protocol for other Covid patients will apply in which asymptomatic patients need not be hospitalised.”
Any deviation from the discharge policy will be viewed seriously, said Randeep in his order dated December 9. The state government has so far identified only two designated hospitals for Omicron patients: Wenlock Hospital in Mangaluru and Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital in Bengaluru.
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