Delhi govt designates Lok Nayak Hospital for treating Omicron cases
Referring to the development in a tweet, health minister Satyendar Jain said the Delhi government was “fully prepared” to fight the new variant of coronavirus, which has been declared a variant of concern by WHO.
The Delhi government on Tuesday designated Lok Nayak hospital for treatment of patients infected with the new Omicron variant of Sars-CoV-2. “Lok Nayak will designate one or more separate wards (as per need) for isolating and treating such patients [those indicating a presence of the new variant],” according to an order by special secretary, health, SM Ali.
Also Read | From December, India imposes new rules for international arrivals over omicron scare
Referring to the development in a tweet, health minister Satyendar Jain said the Delhi government was “fully prepared” to fight the new variant of coronavirus, which has been declared a variant of concern by WHO.”Hereby, we are designating Lok Nayak hospital as a dedicated hospital to treat the new variant of coronavirus (Omicron),” he said.
As per government officials, [international] travellers are also being allowed to isolate in four private hospitals in the city as paid facility.
Also Read | Blanket travel bans will not prevent Omicron spread, says WHO
This comes after the meeting of Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) on Monday, after which deputy CM Manish Sisodia said the state was prepared to tackle any rise in Covid-19 infections. All passengers arriving in Delhi from “at-risk” countries, including all of Europe, will need to take an RT-PCR test at the airport and will have to quarantine at home for at least eight days even if their samples return negative, senior state officials said.
Also Read | Omicron scare: Centre extends existing Covid-19 guidelines till December 31
Currently, Delhi has at least one traveller from Germany, suspected to be infected with the new variant, admitted to Medanta hospital, according to officials. His sample has already been sent for genome sequencing to the National Centres for Disease Control and a report is awaited.
Meanwhile, the government is investigating two clusters of Covid-19 infections in Maharashtra and Karnataka to check for the new variant. No cases of the new variant have been confirmed yet in the country.
