Karnataka govt issues guidelines over judicious use of oxygen therapy on COVID patients

On Friday, the Karnataka government's Clinical Expert Committee issued guidelines for the judicious use of oxygen as a therapy to treat novel coronavirus patients. Mentioning that oxygen therapy is being excessively used without proper monitoring, the Clinical Expert Committee put the focus on the deleterious health effects. Moreover, it observed that this was a wastage of precious resources.

The guidelines are as follows:

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COVID-19 crisis in Karnataka

At present, there are 2,64,546 confirmed novel coronavirus cases in Karnataka out of which 1,76,942 patients have been discharged and 4522 deaths have been reported. There are 83,066 active cases in the state. Among the total active cases, 698 patients are admitted to ICU. On Thursday, Karnataka recorded 7571 new COVID-19 cases besides 93 fatalities.

With 2948 cases, the Bengaluru Urban district continues to be the COVID-19 hotspot of the state. However, in a positive development, Mysuru did not register a single new case. On the other hand, 6561 patients recovered from the virus in the same period. In the last 14 days, 3,63,169 primary contacts and 2,92,640 secondary contacts of novel coronavirus patients have been traced. 4,00,180 persons are under home quarantine. So far, 1,79,316 passengers have been screened at airports. 

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India registers the highest number of recoveries

Currently, there are 29,05,823 confirmed novel coronavirus cases in India out of which 21,58,946 patients have recovered while 54,849 fatalities have been reported. With 62,282 COVID-19 patients getting cured in the last 24 hours, the country registered the single-highest one-day spike of recoveries. The recovery rate stands at 74.28%.

Furthermore, the difference between the recovered and active cases has soared to 14,66,918. Meanwhile, the case fatality rate remains constant at 1.89%. After 8,05,985 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, the number of tests done in India has increased to  3,34,67,237. The number of COVID-19 testing labs rose to 1504 including 978 labs in the government sector and 526 private labs. 

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