– Dr.Adityan Guhan, Founder, AGs Healthcare
The Second Wave of the deadly Covid-19 is almost here, and it was not unexpected. Its time of arrival was the only thing that people could not predict. It is worrying to note that States like Maharashtra, UP, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Delhi are witnessing sharp increase in their new daily covid cases.
When the first wave arose, it caught us with the element of surprise but now we have several advantages on our side to fight it, including the vaccines and experience. Yet, we could not stop the second wave from entering our door steps.
Dr. Adityan Guhan who founded Dr.AGs Clinic – Coimbatore’s first digital clinic and first integrated OP based Master Health Check up Center, says there are certain things that policy makers, authorities and the public should do further, to prevent this pandemic from causing huge disaster in Tamil Nadu.
Enforce strong limitations :
If the number of cases getting reported in a city on a day is 500, then there could be a greater number of patients in that region but they may remain unknown to us. The actual numbers could be more than 50% of the reported figures. These patients could be asymptomatic, and move around us or with us.
I firmly believe that the government should implement additional restrictions like night curfews, weekend curfews, and also limit the number of people allowed in gatherings to be even lower than what it is announced in the recent restrictions.
My friends who are doctors in Mumbai, Maharashtra said that the crematoriums are full of covid affected patients’ bodies and it would take more than 2 weeks for them to burn the corpses. If this kind of situations should not happen in Tamil Nadu, then we need to enforce strong limitations in public gatherings and outside movement.
Put people before profit:
If the govt implements night curfews and other strict restrictions, it will impact the business activities. It will impact the livelihood, but we should realise that all our lives are at stake here. We need to see this clearly. The death toll in the country has increased a lot in the recent days.
We think USA to be an all-powerful and a smarter nation but they are still struggling to cut their death toll due to Covid-19. But countries like South Korea, Germany, UK went for several stages of lockdowns. They halted their business activities to significant levels in order to withstand the pandemic from causing irreversible damages. Spain, that depends big on tourism, gave the activity a big break, in order to protect its people.
The impact of Covid in nations that took these measures is clearly visible. The Tamil Nadu govt must announce even better guidelines to tackle the current scenario, and find ways to make sure that businesses do not get a huge impact by the restrictions, at the same time, see to that the safety of people is ensured in these crucial times. Businesses should put their people ahead of profits.
People are valuable to us. We cannot lose them. Movies and Leisure activities, chilling in the mall, going for shopping, travelling to neighbouring tourist spots, hanging out in hotels and eateries can be avoided by the public.
We don’t know how serious the second wave could be, hence we have to make these hard choices, and shouldn’t take any chances.
Remote Monitoring of Patients can aid in bed-strength management:
We are hearing that the hospital beds are filling with Covid-patients in Delhi and many northern States in India. Even hospital beds in Chennai are getting filled. We have huge number of covid patients in the State of Tamil Nadu but 85% of the Covid patients are asymptomatic, and most of them are eligible for home isolation and monitoring.
But these patients get admitted in hospitals largely out of fear. The government should form a committee to triage the covid patients, and give beds to whosoever needs it at the earliest.
Around 5% of 100 covid cases are the ones with serious issues. These patients must be given top priority in allocating beds, whereas other 15% patients who have lung related issues and symptoms should be triaged, and if they don’t have any serious issues, they can be treated remotely.
I have handled asymptomatic Covid patients remotely during the first wave. We need their heart rate, blood-oxygen saturation and body temperature data. These can be accessed, sampled and analysed using the technology available today from wherever they are.
What the public has to do?:
If we follow the safety norms, we can beat this disease. People should start wearing 2 face masks. First should be a surgical mask. A two-ply mask is better. Around it, a N-95 mask should be worn.
Once in every 2 hours, hands should be washed with soap. For 20 seconds the soap foam should be in the hands, only then can the alkali break the cell walls of the virus if it is present in our hands. We must avoid touching our eyes and nose. Wearing a pair of gloves would be better. We need to avoid going out for recreational purposes.