The Union health ministry has revised its discharge guidelines for coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients, requiring only patients who had developed a severe illness or have compromised immunity to test negative through a swab test before they are allowed to leave the hospital or a care centre.
The other category of patients, including very mild, mild, pre-symptomatic and moderate cases need not be tested before discharge.
The revised discharge guidelines are in contrast with the government’s previous rules that said a laboratory confirmed case had to be tested on day 14 once and then again in a span of 24 hours — if both the results are negative then the patient is fit to be discharged from the health care facility.
For patients on oxygenation, it said that they will be discharged only after the resolution of clinical symptoms and when they gain the ability to maintain oxygen saturation for 3 consecutive days. Additionally, it also stated that severe cases will be discharged after clinical recovery and when the patient tests negative once by RT-PCR (after the resolution of symptoms).