{"id":50058,"date":"2022-01-17T15:39:08","date_gmt":"2022-01-17T10:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/hospitalizations-not-case-count-should-determine-lockdown-dak\/"},"modified":"2022-01-17T15:39:08","modified_gmt":"2022-01-17T10:09:08","slug":"hospitalizations-not-case-count-should-determine-lockdown-dak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=50058","title":{"rendered":"Hospitalizations, not case count should determine lockdown: DAK"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Omicron variant causes lot of infections, most of the infections are mild. Even though the positivity rate is high, most of the cases do not require hospitalization.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Srinagar, Jan 17: <\/strong>Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) on Monday said lockdown should be decided on the basis of number of patients hospitalized with Covid rather than the number of positive cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHospitalization rates, not case count should determine curbs and restrictions,\u201d said DAK President and Influenza expert Dr Nisar ul Hassan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Hassan said the number of cases should not be the metric for imposing restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDaily case count was used as a barometer early in the pandemic to impose restrictions because that time a rise in cases inevitably led to increase in hospitalizations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith omicron those metrics have changed now,\u201d said Dr Nisar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said while Omicron variant causes lot of infections, most of the infections are mild. Even though the positivity rate is high, most of the cases do not require hospitalization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DAK President said we need to recognize that omicron is all around us and it can infect anybody. We no longer need to identify and manage every single case of the variant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCase counts have lost relevance; hospitalization numbers are now reliable markers when it comes to assessing the threat from pandemic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe should be shifting our focus on Covid-related hospitalizations, bed occupancy and number of patients on ventilators.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat should be the major metric and not cases in deciding about imposing severe restrictions, like lockdown,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

General Secretary DAK Dr Arshad Ali said the reason why we were tracking cases was because we were hoping we could eliminate the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut it is not in the nature of the virus to get eliminated,\u201d he said adding \u201cwe have to live with the virus and it is going to stay with us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spokesperson DAK Dr Riyaz Ahmad Dagga said we have reached a point in pandemic where policy should no longer be based around the idea that we cannot resume normal life until case number is below a particular level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese levels were set before vaccination. Setting threshold for activities according to case numbers no longer makes sense,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCountries like Canada, Philippines and Singapore are now implementing an approach that is not focused on case counts,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Omicron variant causes lot of infections, most of the infections are mild. Even though the positivity rate is high, most of the cases do not require hospitalization. Srinagar, Jan 17: Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) on Monday said lockdown should be decided on the basis of number of patients hospitalized with Covid rather than the number […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50057,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-union-territory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}