India’s Omicron tally goes past 140

The cumulative tally of the Omicron Covid-19 variant in India reached 143 on Saturday after four states – Telangana, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala – reported a sharp spike in cases. This came even as the World Health Organization (WHO) earlier in the day stated that the new strain seems to be spreading faster than the Delta variant, according to preliminary evidence.

The central government had also warned earlier that the spread of the new variant will outpace the Delta variant where there is community transmission. It has advised people to avoid non-essential travel and mass gatherings and keep New Year celebrations at low intensity.

In view of this, here’s your guide to understanding the spread of Omicron in India so far:

When was the first case of Omicron detected?

The new variant of Covid-19 was first reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO) from South Africa on 25 November. As per the WHO, the first known confirmed B.1.1.529 infection was from a specimen collected on 9 November this year.

When were the first cases detected?

The country’s first two Omicron cases – a South African national who has left the country and a local doctor with no travel history – were detected in Karnataka on 2 December.

How many Omicron cases were added yesterday?

The number of Omicron cases in Telangana rose to 20 with 12 more people testing positive for the new coronavirus variant on Saturday. As many as 8 more Omicron cases were detected from Maharashtra, which took the state’s tally to 48.

Karnataka saw six new Omicron cases, pushing the state’s tally to 14. Of the total, five cases were found in educational institutions in Dakshina Kannada and another was a UK returnee.

With 4 new cases, Kerala’s tally of Omicron cases rose to 11. Four fresh infections were detected from Thiruvananthapuram, Malappuram and from the Thrissur district.

Can the Omicron variant cause the third wave?

According to members of the National Covid-19 Supermodel Committee, the daily cases in India are expected to increase once the Omicron starts displacing Delta as the dominant variant.

Vidyasagar, who is the head of the committee, said that India will have Omicron’s third wave but it will be milder than the second wave.

“Third wave is likely to arrive early next year in India. It should be milder than the second wave due to a large-scale immunity present in the country now. There will definitely be a third wave. Right now, we are at around 7,500 cases per day which is sure to go up once Omicron starts displacing Delta as the dominant variant,” he was quoted as saying by news agency.

AIIMS Professor Dr Puneet Misra also said that Omicron’s transmissibility is quite high as compared to Delta, but it’s not as severe as Delta.

He said there might be a huge number of cases due to the high transmissibility of the new strain but the situation “won’t be as bad as was during the second wave”.

A contrary view

On the other hand, Niti Aayog member VK Paul said that if India faces a UK-like Omicron outbreak then there will be 14 lakh cases in the country.

“If we look at the scale of spread in the UK and if there is a similar outbreak in India, then given our population, there will be 14 lakh cases every day,” he said.

Most importantly, are vaccines effective against Omicron?

The central government on Friday asserted that there is no evidence to suggest existing Covid-19 vaccines are not effective against the new Omicron variant.

However, Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, the regional director of WHO South-East Asia region, on Thursday said that preliminary data suggest that “vaccines may have reduced effectiveness against Omicron”.

“It will take a few more weeks before there is enough evidence to fully assess the vaccines’ performance against Omicron. We should also not forget that vaccines alone will not get any country out of this pandemic,” she said.

Prior to this as well, the WHO had stated that vaccines may be less effective against infection and transmission linked to the Omicron variant.

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