The Union health ministry on Friday warned against taking the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus lightly and advised people to keep New Year celebrations low key. Cases of the Omicron variant now stand at 101 across 11 states. The variant has so far been detected in 91 countries.
VK Paul, member, health, Niti Aayog, said the situation in many parts of the world has worsened in the last one week despite 70-80% vaccine coverage in many of the countries. The pandemic is entering a worrying phase with the winter season, festivals and an increase in tourism activities, and there is a need for profound caution, Paul said.
If a surge like the one in the UK occurs in India, there could be 14 lakh Omicron cases in the country, Paul said. The peak during the second wave in was 4.14 lakh cases. The government is working on preventing ingress of Omicron into the country through restrictions, monitoring of international passengers and intensifying genomic surveillance, Paul said.
He said it is not possible to carry out genomic sequencing of all individual samples and representative sampling will continue. Genomic sequencing will remain a surveillance and pandemic tracking tool, and will not be used for diagnostics, Paul said.
Dr Balram Bhargava, director general, Indian Council for Medical Research, said the Omicron variant is spreading rapidly across Europe and most parts of the world so it is time to avoid non-essential travel and mass gatherings, and observe low-intensity festivities and New Year celebrations, Bhargava said.
He urged all districts reporting test positivity of more than 5% to ensure local restrictive measure until positivity was below 5% for two weeks.
On the possibility of using anti-viral pills to deal with Covid-19 infections, Bhargava said the national task force and the joint monitoring group of ICMR and health ministry has been discussing the pills. These pills have to be given at an early stage even before the diagnosis, but there is no scientific data to support this will be useful, he said.
Nineteen districts have a positivity rate of more than 5%, while five districts are at 10%. There are 86,415 total cases in the country with 0.65% case positivity and weekly cases at 7,329. Total vaccination has reached 136 crore with 82.82 first doses and 53.72 crore second doses administered, with 86.7% of the adult population getting their first dose and 57.2% getting both. The government will continue to follow the vaccine strategy of fully vaccinating the adult population, with no immediate plans to launch booster doses or vaccines for children.
