NEW DELHI, 24 Dec: Noting that the world is witnessing a fourth surge in Covid cases, the government on Friday cautioned the people against lowering their guard, particularly during the year-end festivities, even as it underlined that infection due to Omicron does not necessarily lead to severe symptomatic disease.
Addressing a joint press conference, ICMR Director General Dr Balram Bhargava said that Delta continues to be the predominant strain in India, including in the recently identified clusters.
“Therefore, we need to continue with the same strategy of following Covid-appropriate behaviour and ramping up vaccination,” he said.
Asserting that the Omicron variant of the coronavirus does not necessarily lead to severe symptomatic clinical disease, Bhargava said that in India, about a third of all the detected cases were mildly symptomatic, and the rest were asymptomatic.
“I want to emphasize that the treatment for Omicron-infected symptomatic individuals remains the same. It does not change from that for Delta, Alpha or the Beta variants,” the ICMR DG said.
At the press conference, union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan had a word of caution. “The world is witnessing the fourth surge of Covid-19 cases and the overall positivity is 6.1 percent. Therefore, we have to be on guard and we can’t afford to slacken,” he said.
Explaining the Covid trend, including that of all its variants in different continents, Bhushan said that, while Europe, North America and Africa are seeing an increase in infection week-on-week since 26 November, Asia is still witnessing a decline in cases.
In India, the number of daily cases has been below 10,000 for the last four weeks. “While these numbers are low, we must be vigilant and keep up the guard,” the union health secretary said.
On medical oxygen supply, Bhushan said, “Based on global and South Africa’s experience, Omicron patients so far did not have additional requirement of oxygen. But we need to be proactive.” (PTI)