Around 300 new cases being reported in Karnataka every day, the circular said (File)
Karnataka has asked officials to trace, track and quarantine primary and secondary contacts of Covid patients in the state in a fresh notification issued by the state's health department.
In order to prevent a third Covid wave, officials must ensure enhanced surveillance of contacts and identify them within 24 hours of someone testing positive, it said.
Primary contacts must quarantine at home for seven days and be tested on the 1st and 8th days, it added.
The notification shares figures of around 300 new cases being reported in the state every day with a test positivity rate of 0.25% to 0.3%. 19 cases of Omicron have been detected in the state so far and if cases are left unchecked it could trigger a tidal wave of new infections, it said.
International travellers from high-risk countries will have to quarantine for seven days from the date of arrival with a follow-up RT-PCR test on the 8th day, it added.
Those currently engaged in contact tracing and are on quarantine and home isolation watches shall continue to do so, the circular said. In addition, districts and Bengaluru's civic body BBMP must post dedicated, full-time persons for contact tracing and quarantine/home isolation watches. These activities must be reported in the Contact Tracing Application and Quarantine Watch Application which will be activated.
Physical triaging of all Covid patients is now necessary and additional teams will be deployed to record all information as needed.
War rooms under the Bengaluru civic body at zonal and constituency levels will be reactivated and made fully functional once again to monitor and supervise these activities. The war rooms had been very active during the deadly second wave in the state. However, the number of staff working these rooms was reduced once the situation began stabilising.
An Integrated Testing App will be rolled out on a trial basis in the BBMP area.
Karnataka has already announced restrictions to ensure muted New Year's Eve celebrations. The state is trying to avoid a spike in cases with the highly-infectious Omicron variant triggering a global alarm.