COVID-19 will persist at least for the next two years and the public must, therefore, take adequate precautions, said Indian Medical Association (IMA) State secretary, A.K. Ravikumar, in Coimbatore on Friday.
As the virus had spread to rural areas now, the public must follow norms such as personal distancing, wearing masks, hand sanitisation and coughing etiquettes. “Self-discipline will be the only vaccine for now,” Dr. Ravikumar said at a press meet. Once developed, the process of administering the actual COVID-19 vaccine to the public could take “roughly six to nine months,” he said.
Instead of confirming COVID-19 deaths only through reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing method, the State government must announce COVID-19 deaths which were confirmed through computed tomography (CT) scans and other biochemical tests, Dr. Ravikumar said.
According to the data available with the IMA’s State branch, 32 doctors who tested positive through RT-PCR method had died in the State as of Thursday. However, 15 doctors who tested negative in RT-PCR tests but had COVID-19 symptoms and tested positive through other methods such as CT scans had died in the State till Thursday, he claimed.
The State government must increase the number of private COVID-19 testing centres in “semi-urban and rural” areas to ensure that government testing laboratories did not face an increase in load, he said. As nearly 85% of the COVID-19 positive patients were asymptomatic, testing all the patients who visited hospitals had become necessary, Dr. Ravikumar said.
He requested the State government to release official condolence messages for the doctors who died after contracting COVID-19 and provide ex-gratia for their family members irrespective of whether they belonged to the government or private hospitals. The State government must also reconsider the tariff fixed for private hospitals due to the high cost of COVID-19 treatment, according to Dr. Ravikumar.
