Taking into cognisance the alarming spike in daily coronavirus cases due to the highly-contagious mutant strain called Omicron, the central government has issued a fresh set of guidelines for targeted action against the virus.

As per the new directive issued by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the Centre has decided to re-establish Covid-19 Control Rooms at district and sub-district levels to ensure ease of access to services such as ambulance transportation, booking a hospital bed, etc.

India’s tally of Omicron infections has increased to 2,630 after 495 new cases were recorded in the past 24 hours, with Maharashtra and Delhi being the worst-hit.

Overall, the country has witnessed a single-day spike of 90,928 Covid-19 cases, and 325 fatalities, pushing the total caseload to 3,51,09,286, and death toll to 4,82,876.

Directives for district and sub-district level Covid-19 Control Rooms:

1. The control rooms shall be adequately staffed with medical doctors, counsellors and volunteers, among other relevant staff, and shall be equipped with ample phone lines to cater to the assigned population.
2. Enabling infrastructure in terms of computers and broadband must be provided to the Control Rooms for uninterrupted connectivity
3. Depending on the case load, the control rooms shall remain functional round the clock to provide validated guidance / support to the patients.
4. Control rooms must have real-time data on availability of Covid-19 testing centres, ambulances, and shall be able to guide the caller on the process for availing these services.
5. Control rooms should also monitor the availability of different types of beds across the assigned health facilities and shall counsel the patients / attendants to avail only the required services based on clinical symptoms and availability of beds. Clear and transparent mechanism for allotment of beds must be ensured by the Control Rooms.
6. Dedicated ambulances shall be allotted to each Control Room based on area case load for transportation of patients, as per the need.
7. Control Rooms shall also be responsible to make outbound calls to the patients under home isolation for regular monitoring of their status.
8. One of the core responsibilities of the Control Rooms shall also be to collate the daily status report of all patients under home isolation in their jurisdiction and submit the same to the district administration.