Chandigarh: ‘In the last 15 days, only Omicron active in the community’

The positivity rate of the last one week is 4.20 per cent, close to the WHO recommendation that test positivity should be five per cent or lower for 14 days before complete reopening. Dr Suman Singh, Director Health Services, the Health Department, UT, said that in view of the decreased number of patients, it can be said, that we have come out from the third wave.

“But despite this, we are not doing any reduction in testing, which is going on with the same flow.” According to Dr Singh, the department is sending 15 per cent of samples out of the daily sampling for whole-genome sequencing, and according to reports, in the last 15 days, only Omicron has been active in the community. In the earlier weeks of January, both Delta and Omicron were active in the community, though there were more cases of Delta,” said Dr Singh, adding that it is important we continue observing Covid appropriate behaviour.

Seeing the decrease in cases in the last one week, said Prof Rakesh Kochhar, former head of the Department of Gastroenterology, PGI, it can be said that this could be the end of this wave and the variant.

“After so many variants, we are keeping a guarded approach. Considering that about 70 per cent people were infected with Delta in the second wave and now 90 per cent of us may have been exposed to both Delta and Omicron, hopefully, we are protected and like any other natural protection it should last for a while.”

Prof Kochhar said that more than 75 per cent of adults are now vaccinated and children in the 15 to 18 age group are also being vaccinated at a high pace, though we still don’t know how long the protection of the vaccine lasts.

“Some reports say that Omicron may induce protection, and act as a natural booster dose, but these are hopeful suppositions, and not factually generated. As for how the virus may mutate, it is tough to predict. There are reports that the Delta-Omicron may come up, though it is still speculation. In countries like India, the USA, the UK, a large population is vaccinated, but in many other places like Africa, many are not vaccinated and are prone to get infected, and if the virus circulates in that population, it may begin a new mutation. The need of the hour is for vaccination to be carried out across the globe and that’s why many support the idea of sending vaccines to poorer countries.”