A doctor advising the Kerala Covid-19 task force said the Omicron variant of the coronavirus was likely to “hang around” but the Delta variant was “on its way out”. The latest variant is fuelling a surge in daily infections, as India battles the third wave of the pandemic. The Delta variant, on the other hand, was responsible for the devastating second wave last year.
“The Omicron variant of Covid-19 will hang around for a while but then it will die down. The Delta variant is on its way out, it’s unlikely that Delta will survive in the long run,” Dr Rajeev Jayadevan, who is advising the Covid task force at Indian Medical Association, Kochi, was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
The INSACOG has already said Omicron was in the community transmission stage and dominant in multiple metros. In its January 10 bulletin released on Sunday, the INSACOG also said BA.2 lineage, an infectious sub-variant of Omicron, was found in Indian samples. The newly discovered sub-variant has emerged as a dominant strain in European and Asian countries, triggering fears regarding future waves of the pandemic.
The sub-variant has been found in 80 per cent of samples from Kolkata, which were sent for genome sequencing between December 22 and 28 The CT level of these samples was below 30, indicating high viral load.
The UK Health Security Agency has also identified 426 cases in Britain in the first 10 days of this month and has indicated the latest variant has been detected in some 40 other countries, accounting for a majority of most recent cases.
The INSACOG, however, said while most Omicron cases were asymptomatic or mild so far, hospitalisations and ICU cases have increased in the current wave and the threat level remains unchanged. “Omicron is now in community transmission in India and has become dominant in multiple metros, where new cases have been rising exponentially. BA.2 lineage is in a substantial fraction in India and S gene dropout based screening is thus likely to give high false negatives,” it said.
The INSACOG has, so far, sequenced 1,50,710 samples and analysed 1,27,697.
In Kerala, meanwhile, the Sunday lockdown began with only emergency services operating. The next such lockdown will be on January 30, another Sunday.
On Saturday, Kerala reported 45,136 new positive cases taking the total affected in the state to 55,74,702. On January 20, when the high-level Covid review meeting was held, the state logged 46,387 cases that were highest single-day spike since the outbreak in 2020.
(With PTI inputs)
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