PremiumWhile this covid mutation is clearly proving to be less lethal, the notion that its spread is benign, as some had argued, needs to be dispelled. A study in Delhi has shown that it could be fatal for those with underlying vulnerabilities
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Almost two months since the first Omicron case was detected in India, we have data showing that it has achieved dominance. Reported numbers from a covid variant tracker run by GISAID, a Munich-based global set-up that keeps watch of various viral genomes, suggest that more than three-fourths of Indian cases by 10 January had been of this highly infectious strain. The latest bulletin of India’s genome watcher, Insacog, had noted earlier this week that Omicron is now in “community transmission". This explains our week’s average having crossed 311,000 daily infections.
While this covid mutation is clearly proving to be less lethal, the notion that its spread is benign, as some had argued, needs to be dispelled. A study in Delhi has shown that it could be fatal for those with underlying vulnerabilities. Virus genomes sequenced by a lab revealed that every covid fatality in the city between December-end and the first week of January had been an Omicron case. Daily covid deaths recorded across India, at a seven-day average of a little above 500, have risen even if they’ve not spiked as they did during our Delta wave. Today’s leading bug is milder, sure, but only in relative terms.
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