Screening of passengers at railway stations made compulsory

Screening of passengers at railway stations made compulsory

Passengers have to reach railway stations at least 90 minutes in advance

30/05/2020, STAFF REPORTER,GUNTUR

The railways has made screening of all passengers compulsory and said that only asymptomatic passengers will be allowed to board trains.

The railways have issued guidelines which make it mandatory for all passengers to reach railway stations at least 90 minutes in advance, and said that only passengers with confirmed tickets will be allowed to enter railway station.

All passengers must wear masks at the entry and during the travel and passengers have to observe social distancing both at the station and on trains.

On arrival at their destination, passengers should adhere to health protocols as prescribed by destination State/UTs.

The railways would refund the fare in case passengers not found fit for travelling due to symptoms of corona and passengers with very high temperature/Symptoms of COVID-19 etc. would not be allowed to travel despite having confirmed tickets. Full refund would be paid to them.

For refunds, online TDR should be filed within 10 days from date of journey and original TC certificates to be sent by the passenger to IRCTC and full fare to be refunded in customer’s account.

The railways have also banned catering charges to be included in the fare, and encourage passengers to carry their own food and drinking water.

All static catering and vending units at railway stations remain open and no no linen blankets and curtains to be provided inside the train.

New system for COVID-19 testing

New system for COVID-19 testing

30/05/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT ,THRISSUR

A nucleic acid extraction system that will enable rapid COVID-19 tests will be launched at Government Medical College Hospital, Thrissur, on Saturday.

The new system, which will be installed at the virology lab of the hospital, will ensure test results in three hours. T.N. Prathapan and Ramya Haridas, MPs, will inaugurate the system.

A sum of ₹40 lakh from Ms. Haridas’ local area development fund was used for the installation of the system, procured from Germany.

Jagan to lay stone for medical college

Jagan to lay stone for medical college

30/05/2020, STAFF REPORTER,VISAKHAPATNAM

Tourism Minister M. Srinivasa Rao said that Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy will lay the foundation stone for the medical college which is proposed to come up at Paderu in Visakhapatnam Agency soon. He said that the medical college will be set up in about 35 acres and orders have been issued for the construction. He was speaking to the media about the government initiatives in Medical & Health and the Tourism Departments, at the VMRDA arena here on Friday.

Mr. Srinivasa Rao said that the State government will set up medical colleges in all parliamentary constituencies in the State, including one at Anakapalle. The college at Paderu will boost medical facilities for the people living in tribal areas, he said.

“Nearly ₹2,280 crore will be spent for construction of medical colleges at Anakapalle and Paderu, CHCs and PHCs,” he said.

Degree exams likely to start from June 20

Degree exams likely to start from June 20

30/05/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,HYDERABAD

Degree final year examinations may start from June 20, with the exam time reduced to two hours if suggestions made by the Telangana State Council of Higher Education (TSCHE) to varsities are followed.

TSCHE suggested reduction of examination time from three hours to two hours and set the paper accordingly. It means varsities can give more choice in questions to lessen the burden on students. However, covering the entire syllabus is mandatory.

TSCHE chairman T. Papi Reddy said that based on UGC guidelines issued earlier, the council held a meeting with registrars and controller of examinations of various universities. Based on the discussions, TSCHE has issued certain guidelines on the conduct of examinations.

Prof. Reddy said that the degree examinations may be held from June 20 onwards but the universities can have their system according to their convenience. The PG exams can be held later as priority was for the degree exams with students prepared for admissions in PG courses across the country.

Universities were also advised to finish the exams within a span of 10 to 15 days covering two papers of different streams per day. It also suggested that examinations for students of Intermediate semesters may be conducted after reopening of colleges or in November and December along with odd semesters’ main examinations.

TSCHE said that students of Intermediate semesters may be promoted to next higher semester irrespective of the number of backlogs, and most universities seem to be already in the mood for that.

With regard to project viva voce and seminars and Ph.D seminars, it said they can be conducted online as per UGC guidelines. However, a web link has to be shared with the DRC members if the Ph.D seminars are conducted online.

‘States show variations in testing contacts’

‘States show variations in testing contacts’

Kerala tested an average of 40 contacts per confirmed positive case, and Maharashtra only eight

30/05/2020, JACOB KOSHY,NEW DELHI

States that are grappling with the highest burden of COVID-19 are those that least tested the contacts of persons who were confirmed positive, suggests data from an analysis of nearly 1,00,000 individuals tested for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and published by a core group of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) scientists and independent epidemiologists leading India’s COVID-19 testing.

A large proportion of both — those tested and those found positive — were asymptomatic family contacts.

Kerala, which is among the States that have contained the initial surge of the pandemic, tested an average of 40 contacts per confirmed positive case. On the other hand, Maharashtra, which on Friday had 38,948 active cases and 1,982 deaths, had tested only eight contacts per positive case. Gujarat, which had 6,599 cases and 960 deaths, only tested 12 contacts per confirmed positive case.

‘Wide variations’

“States demonstrated wide variations in contacts tested per case. It represents the robustness of contact tracing. While exposure to different contacts could vary per case, the reason for this variation needs to be further explored to improve tracing and testing strategies,” says the paper, published on Friday in the Indian Journal for Medical Research.

According to the paper, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand were among the States that had tested greater than the 75th percentile of contacts.

Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi were among those with less than 50th percentile of the contacts tested.

Testing contacts and isolating suspects is a critical aspect of restricting fatalities and ensuring that infections don’t spread rapidly.

For the analysis, the researchers studied individuals who had tested positive between January 22-April 30. Cases in India started to measurably pick up only after March 5, and by March 23, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had declared a lockdown.

Highest proportion

The proportion of positive cases was highest among symptomatic and asymptomatic contacts, two-three-fold higher than among those with severe acute respiratory infections, or those with an international travel history, or among healthcare workers.

The attack rate (based on the number of positive cases in a category) per million by age was highest among those aged 50-69 years (63.3%) and was lowest among those under 10 years (6.1%). The attack rate, or a fraction of a population testing positive, was higher among males (41.6%) than females (24.3%). The secondary attack rate (based on positive cases among contacts of primary cases) was 6%.

Tests for COVID-19 were conducted in 99% of 736 districts in the country, and 71% of these districts reported positive cases.

Cough and fever

Of the 40,184 positive cases until April, 25.3% were asymptomatic family contacts, 10.6% were symptomatic contacts, and 10.5% were SARI (Severe Acute Respiratory Infection) patients. Among the 12,810 cases with reported symptoms at the time of specimen collection, cough and fever were the most commonly reported symptoms (64.5% and 60%, respectively).

As on Friday, 1.65 million people in India had tested positive, the highest in Asia.

Travellers coming to State have to pay for their own tests

Travellers coming to State have to pay for their own tests

‘Aim is to improve participation of private labs in testing’

30/05/2020, STAFF REPORTER,BENGALURU

International air passengers and inter-State air and train passengers arriving in State will have to now get their COVID-19 “pooled sample test” done in a private lab that would cost them ₹650. The government, however, will pay for those who cannot afford it.

An order issued on Friday states that each traveller will have to pay a private lab which will conduct the test by the pooling method. According to the Indian Council for Medical Research, this method involves five samples being taken and tested together.

The order comes a day after the Department of Health and Family Welfare said it was not necessary for passengers coming from high-risk States, who finished their seven-day quarantine period, to undergo a COVID-19 test. According to sources, Friday’s decision was because it would be difficult for all passengers coming from high-risk States to be quarantined for seven days in hotels and lodges.

On those who cannot afford to pay, Pankaj Kumar Pandey, Commissioner, Department of Health and Family Welfare, said, “This is only an order to facilitate private labs to conduct tests. Once the swab collection centres come up, we will plan how it will be done in the next two or three days.” He said the State government would pay for those who cannot afford to pay.

An official who monitors testing of people in Bengaluru, however, said the order lacked clarity.

The department issued a clarification and said this order was issued to “improve the participation of private labs that have been approved by the ICMR in testing and were currently running at sub-optimal level”. It is also to help the special category passengers and their attendants to leave early after giving the sample once the swab collection centres are established at airport/ railway stations etc.

The department also clarified that there is no change in the institutional quarantine period for those coming from high-risk States and they would have to complete their seven-day quarantine.

53 flights cancelled to and from KIA, strict surveillance at border roads

53 flights cancelled to and from KIA, strict surveillance at border roads

Air traffic from five high-risk States Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan to be reduced

30/05/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

A day after the State government decided to request the Civil Aviation Ministry to reduce the number of flights from high risk States to Karnataka, 53 arrivals and departures were cancelled at Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) as of Friday evening. Twenty-six flights scheduled to land from Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Delhi and other cities were cancelled. Similarly, 27 flights scheduled to take off from KIA did not do so.

On Thursday, the State government after the Cabinet meeting said that it wanted to reduce air traffic from five high risk States - Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan.

Karnataka is not the first State to take such a step. In the past, other States, too, had asked the Union government for reduced flight operations from high prevalence States. However, the cancellation of flights is causing a lot of inconvenience to people who had booked tickets, which many carriers have acknowledged.

“We are painfully aware that continuing last minute changes in regulations, mandated by the State governments at short notice, are causing a huge number of disruptions for our customers, and accessing our call centre has become very difficult,” said IndiGo, in a release to the media.

Vigilance at the border

District administration officials closed all the minor roads connecting Belagavi to Maharashtra. The Police and Revenue departments personnel put up barricades and piled mud mounds on the roads to stop people from entering the State. Check-posts have been put up on the national highways as per the standard operating protocol at three places.

“Due to rising number of cases, we have clear instructions to stop the entry of persons from five high-risk States. We are following them strictly,” Raghavendra Suhas, IGP, northern range, told The Hindu. Land routes from - Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan, pass through Belagavi, Vijayapura and Bagalkot. The official added that they are especially focusing on Nippani and Chikkodi taluks as they have porous borders. “We are not only posting constables and officers at villages, but have also told villagers to alert us if they see anyone cross the border,” he said.