All private and government hospitals in Karnataka have been told that Covid test reports are no longer necessary to hospitalise patients without symptoms or other medical procedures, the state's health minister Dr Sudhakar K has said in a tweet.
"All government and private hospitals in the State have been instructed to discontinue precautionary Covid 19 testing of asymptomatic patients prior to hospitalisation, surgeries, scanning and other medical procedures (sic)," the health minister's tweet read. He shared the detailed order in the post.
Karnataka was one of the states that saw a tremendous surge in Covid cases as India was hit by the third wave, driven by the highly infectious coronavirus variant. The state had seen around 48,000 cases in a day at the peak of third wave on January 27.
Bengaluru was one of the major cities in India that witnessed a worrying spike in cases. The state capital was logging a majority of cases in Karnataka for a significant time period in January.
Omicron, the new variant, had pushed the states to bring back curbs in a bid to check the spread.
{{/usCountry}}Omicron, the new variant, had pushed the states to bring back curbs in a bid to check the spread.
{{/usCountry}}Earlier this month, however, the centre told the states to review the Covid curbs with the daily infections dropping.
Last month, the daily cases had passed the 3.48 lakh mark in India at the peak of the third wave. During the second wave, India had logged a record 4.14 lakh cases in a day.
Daily infections, however, are now dropping. India reported 15,102 cases on Wednesday.
Karnataka registered 767 new infections.