JOIN USOmicron or Delta? Panicked Bengaluru patients dial helplines with request for info
Helplines are swamped with calls from anxious Covid-positive individuals who want to find out if they have the Delta or Omicron variant.
Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) sources confirmed that the municipality’s January 3-launched Covid-19 helpline has been receiving calls from frantic individuals wanting to know the variant that infected them.
“This is because of the influence of social media, especially WhatsApp, where all sorts of spurious information are shared and this creates more questions than answers,” said Dr A S Balasundar, BBMP’s Chief Health Officer.
“Our operators attempt to assuage the callers’ concerns because panic will result in people swamping hospitals. This will result in beds getting occupied unnecessarily by those who should be getting isolated at home,” he added.
In the last 48 hours, the helpline is said to have received at least 350 calls, some of which pertain to hospitalisations and vaccinations, but there are also queries about testing centres and reports.
Telemedicine specialists manning other helplines also confirmed the issue.
“Many calls are a result of anticipatory panic,” said Dr Haleema Yezdani of the telemedicine service, StepOne.
“People want to know if they need to seek ventilator support in the case of a Delta infection and whether there will be a repeat of the second wave in which beds were all booked.” She added that there are currently more cases of panicked people calling the helplines than at the beginning of the second wave.
“I am currently getting about 80 calls a day for the last seven days compared to about 60 on average during the early stages of the second wave. Most of the callers are locals. However, the number of people actually requiring hospitalisation now is low,” Dr Haleema added.
Individual specialists also corroborated public curiosity about the variants. Among them is Dr Anoop Amarnath, a geriatric care specialist at Manipal Hospitals (Old Airport Road) and a member of the state’s Critical Care Support Unit (CCSU).
“The requests are by people across the spectrum. The infections appear to be a combination of the Delta and Omicron variants,” he said.
Trademark symptoms?
But are there trademark symptoms that people can spot to identify the infecting variant?
Dr Amarnath pointed to unusual symptoms among new patients such as fever, sore throat, runny nose, pronounced myalgia and diaphoresis.
“These are by no means exclusive to Omicron, but they do differ slightly in intensity compared to symptoms seen in the second wave. They also last for as many as five days after the onset of symptoms among the vaccinated. Recovery is generally good,” he said.
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