IAS officers to monitor home isolation cases; AP has 30,559 Remdesivir doses 

With regard to oxygen supply in the State, Singhal said 437 MT of oxygen was supplied in the last 24 hours. “Against our requirement of 550 MT, the Centre has allocated 470 MT. Allocations from the Centre are dynamic and vary from day to day depending on the availability and demands from other States. On our part, we have requested for a meeting of the committee, which makes allocations and consider increasing our indent,” he said. 

The Centre has asked petroleum companies to divert cryogenic tankers used for LNG for oxygen transportation. On Friday, nine such tankers were allocated to the States and Andhra Pradesh got two, so liquid oxygen can be transported to refilling points from oxygen plants. “The State government on its part is also planning to purchase cryogenic tankers. Sri City is reported to be manufacturing tankers and discussions will be held once there is a clarity on the subject,” he said. 

Giving details of Remdesivir stock in the State, Singhal said a total of 15,291 vials are in private hospitals and of which 9,646 were procured by hospitals themselves, while 5,645 doses were facilitated by the government. In all, 30,559 doses of Remdesivir are available in all the hospitals now. 

With regard to beds availability, focus is on Covid Care Centres and more number of them are being set up across the State. “We expect them to be filled gradually. At present, a total of 7,749 patients are undergoing treatment at CCCs.  Earlier, when there were no CCCs, Covid hospitals accommodated all the cases. Now, with increasing demand, priority is being given to serious cases. As and when a vacancy of bed is created in hospitals, it is being filled with serious cases, while non-serious cases are being accommodated in CCCs,” he explained. 

As a major chunk of active caseload of Covid is in home isolation, the government has appointed IAS officers as nodal officers to monitor home isolation cases. They are entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring home isolation kits are delivered to patients promptly, ANMs visit patients regularly to keep track of their health condition. 

He said the number of calls being received by 104 call centres is increasing and on Friday compared to 7,000 calls a day on an average during weekdays, 15,000 plus calls were received. Out of the total, 3,698 calls were related to tests, 3,183 sought Covid information and 2,872 test results and 930 enquired about vaccination, Singhal added.