Lockdown 4.0: New guidelines issued for workplaces by Health Ministry

Last updated on February 13th, 2023 at 04:37 pm

With the re-opening of workplaces in India, the Union Health Ministry issued a set of new guidelines on Tuesday.

According to the new regulations, if there is any suspected or positive cases, office authorities must be informed with isolation. Though the office building closure is not required, in case of a bigger outbreak, the office needs to be shut down for 48 hours for disinfection, the reports said.

The guidelines make physical distancing of atleast 1 meter to be followed at all times with face masks mandatory.

ICMR to relook into Hydroxychloroquine

Ministry has not changed the protocols of using Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a prophylactic drug, along with combination of HIV drugs, to arrest the spread of COVID-19 infection. The experts had demanded dropping of this drug from safety guidelines of drugs to be used in high risk patients and healthcare workers.

With the relaxations and re-opening of workplaces, ICMR has been advised to relook into the prophylactic drug combination use.

Workplace guidelines

The new set of guidelines issued by Health Ministry state that any employee who is suffering from flu-like symptoms must not attend office and seek medical care from local healthcare authorities. Additionally, any employee who requests home quarantine based on containment zone in his residential area must be allowed to work from home.

The Health Ministry noted in the guidelines, “Practice frequent handwashing (for at least 40-60 seconds) even when hands are not visibly dirty and use of alcohol based sanitizers (for at least 20 seconds) and respiratory etiquettes are to be strictly followed. The respiratory etiquettes involve the strict practice of covering one’s mouth and nose while coughing/ sneezing with a tissue/ handkerchief/ flexed elbow and disposing of used tissues properly.”

Read: How India needs to brace for Impact against mental sickness Post Lockdown open?

New guidelines were issued by the Union Health Ministry on Tuesday following the testing pattern revision. According to this in addition to the earlier criteria, the broadening of strategy is done now to include the front line health workers in the containment zones and COVID-19 mitigating patients, like those who develop Influenza like illness (ILI) symptoms along with ILI symptomatic returnees and migrants.

India has now reported a tally of 1,06,811 cases with 5,680 new cases reported on Tuesday. With 158 reported deaths on Tuesday, the deceased tally has now reached 3,316 in India.

There have been a total of 2,350 recovered cases in last 24 hours, bringing the total recovered tally in India to 39,174. The Health Ministry said in its statement, “The country is registering a recovery rate of 38.73%. The rate is improving continuously.”

On Monday, India tested a record breaking number of samples 1,08,233. This brings the total tested samples in India to 24,25,742.