By Express News Service
BENGALURU: The World Health Organisation has cautioned countries that are opening up to ease Covid-19 curbs at a slow pace, and also be ready to reinstate control measures if the need arises. A sub-variant of the fast-spreading and heavily mutated Omicron strain of the coronavirus, BA.2, has now been predicted to be even more infectious than the original version. It has been detected in as many as 57 countries and is becoming the dominant variant worldwide, infecting nearly 90 million people in only 10 weeks’ time.
“Many countries are yet to reach their peak in cases of the highly infectious Omicron variant of the coronavirus, and several countries have a large number of the population unvaccinated. So now is not the time to lift everything all at once. We have always urged, always be very cautious, in applying interventions as well as lifting those interventions in a steady and slow way, piece by piece. Because this virus is quite dynamic,” Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19, said in an online briefing.
WHO’s emergencies chief Mike Ryan, addressing the same briefing, said he feared that political pressure might result in some countries reopening their societies prematurely, leading to unnecessary further transmission of Covid-19 and deaths.
However, in India, the already circulating variant is BA.2 and experts say that several states are yet to peak. Dr Chandrakant Lahariya, vaccine policy expert and epidemiologist, says India will see a quiet gap of at least six months, after this wave. “It is highly unlikely that India will face another wave, like a few countries like South Africa and United Kingdom, where the original Omicron variant was dominating.”
He says there will be a lull for few months, even if there is a new variant. However, he cautions that people cannot be careless which will help the virus mutate. “Following Covid-appropriate behaviour and expressing caution for a few more weeks is essential. Taking booster shots and both doses of the vaccines is the only way to prevent severity of the disease,” said Dr Gopikrishna V, physician.
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