The Covid-19 catastrophe is something that every nation is well aware of. The dreadful second wave of Covid-19 broke the backbone of the medical infrastructure and the resources of the countries. Countries lost their people, their livelihood, resources, and showed the national and global failures of the policies.
Many variants of Coronavirus had been found in the past two years of this global pandemic and all of the variants had their characteristic features and symptoms. After the horrendous second wave of transmission of the Delta variant of coronavirus in Mid-2021 Omicron, a new strain of Covid-19 was firstly reported in Botswana on November 11, 2021, which later spread to other countries.
Researchers had been working to find out the genetic makeup and the epidemiology of the strains of the viruses to study the repercussions and aware the world with legitimate information. Also, many new strains of the virus have been found in the past two years of the pandemic. The Delta variant of the virus was deadly and took millions of lives in the second wave of the pandemic.
The transmission rate of the Delta variant of the virus was less than the omicron strain. The Omicron strain of the virus is less deadly but is transmitted at a reckless rate. In India, the virus is transmitting at the community level and is causing infection at a fast and severe pace. Even though the symptoms are not as concerning as it was in the case of the Delta variant, the rate the virus is spreading is a matter of distress.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical lead of the World Health Organization has urged the people to be cautious as the variant has transmitted very effectively between people. While replying to a question at a program she emphasized that even if the Omicron strain is less severe than the delta strain it can be transformed into a full spectrum of disease as seen in other variants of the virus.
To a question on why people are still hospitalized or died she answered “People who are infected with Omicron have the full spectrum of disease, everything from asymptomatic infection through severe disease and death.” She asserted that people with underlying conditions, people in their old ages, people who haven’t received the vaccination shot are more prone to the severe form of the Covid-19 infection followed by Omicron.
On a query regarding if everyone around the world would get the Omicron strain looking at the high rate of transmission, WHO tech lead said “Omicron is overtaking Delta in terms of circulation, and it is very efficiently transmitted between people” and mentioned that it is not necessary that it would infect every single person on the planet.
The United Nations has previously said that the shreds of evidence have shown that the available injected vaccines might prove not to be very effective on the new strain and this increases the chances of reinfection to a larger extent and this makes the risk related to the Omicron strain of the virus very severe.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, World Health Organization’s chief has reiterated in the past that this pandemic is far from over. He said that this pandemic is very far from over in response to people being irresponsible and dismissing the Omicron strain as a mild one.
The USA tops the list of the most number of Coronavirus cases and India holds the second position. Both countries need to implement and follow the protocols seriously. Even if the hospitalization rate is less in this case we should not underestimate the virus and protect our immunity as much as we can.
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