Dr V.K. Paul, Member (health) at the NITI Aayog, involved closely in India's COVID management strategy, has recommended that everyone wears masks even at home.
“The time has come to recommend wearing a mask even if you are at home,” said Dr. Paul at the weekly press briefing by the Health Ministry. “We used to speak of masking up when leaving home but now, just in case someone at home catches the virus, it would be advisable to wear one. When someone at home is positive, then definitely.”
Other officials present at the briefing, including Joint Secretary, Lav Agrawal, Dr Randeep Guleria, Director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi also emphasised the importance of masks, social distancing but underlined multiple times that people “shouldn't be panicking.”
Dr .Guleria said that 85% of those afflicted by the virus would recover without need of any medication and not everyone needed to rush to a hospital.
Coronavirus updates | April 26, 2021
“There is unnecessary panic all around and this is causing more harm than good. This is causing hoarding of drugs and misuse of valuable medical resources. An oxygen level of 94-95 doesn’t need an oxygen concentrator and you shouldn't try to raise it at those levels. Above 94 means your organs are getting adequate oxygen,” said Dr. Guleria.
“Before the pandemic, we've managed patients with these machines at 88-90. If it's below 94, consult with your doc. For hospitals, it's important to prevent leakage. The benefits of (antiviral) Remdesivir aren't well established,” he added.
Nearly 87% of India's registered healthcare workers and 80% of frontline workers had been administered at least one dose of COVID vaccine, Mr Agrawal said. However, only 36% of those 60 and above, the most vulnerable group, had received at least one shot, he added.
Coronavirus | Over 14.19 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in India
If no one wore masks, there was a 90% risk of an infected person transmitting the disease to someone else whereas were everyone to wear one, that risk went down to 1.5%, Dr Paul said.
He added that other than tocilizumab and remdesivir, for managing mild COVID-19, India’s health guidelines recommended hydroxychloroquine, paracetamol, ivermectin.
“If congestion lasts over 5 days budenoside (a steroid) can be inhaled. These are mentioned in our guidelines for early stages and more people should know about it,” the official said.
Oxygen transport
Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Piyush Goyal, said the turnaround time of oxygen-carrying tankers was reduced to 1-2 hours from 4-5 days by taking the help of the Indian Air Force transport aircraft which have been ferrying empty tankers.
“We have enough stock of oxygen. The issue is transportation which we are trying to resolve by active involvement of all stake holders,” Mr. Goyal told a press conference in the national capital. Several of India's oxygen producing plants were situated in the Central and Eastern States and to rapidly transport it to the whole country amidst the rising demand though challenging, was manageable, he claimed.
“There is absolutely no need to panic for oxygen as we are trying to resolve the issue of oxygen transportation from the producing States to high demand areas.” He also said the Central government was monitoring the movement of oxygen-carrying tankers on real-time basis through GPS and making them available to hospitals at the shortest possible time.
