The Karnataka government has identified 66 private hospitals to function as fever clinics and swab collection centres to cope with the rising COVID-19 cases, an official said on Wednesday."The private medical colleges and private hospitals attached with this notification are instructed to work as fever clinics cum swab collection centres," said a health official.This decision was taken at a meeting chaired by the Chief Secretary and attended by the private colleges and hospitals.According to the state health department, fever clinics are the first point of contact in detecting Covid patients, whose symptoms include fever, cold, cough, sore throat, breathlessness and others.Currently, Karnataka has more than 600 fever clinics and 1,172 swab.