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The recent increase in Covid cases is not indicative of a new wave, and there is no need to panic, according to health experts on Monday.
According to data from the Union Health Ministry, India recorded a single-day increase of 918 new Covid cases in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of active cases to 6,350.
Kerala had the most Covid cases (1,796), followed by Maharashtra (1,308), Gujarat (740), Karnataka (616), Tamil Nadu (363), Telangana (237), and Delhi (209). There were also four Covid deaths reported in India, two in Rajasthan and one each in Karnataka and Kerala.
“We believe that this is a change between the two seasons and we are seeing a spurt in the cases because of that. As soon as the summer sets in and the sweltering heat comes in, hopefully these cases will go down,” Dr Rahul Pandit, a member of the Covid task force and Chair, Critical Care, Sir H.N. Reliance Foundation Hospital, told IANS.
“Covid is now just like the flu or a common cold. There is no significant increase in hospitalisation, ICU admission or death rate,” added epidemiologist Dr. (Prof) Amitav Banerjee.
“Testing is not a good indicator as of today. It has become endemic. People carry so many germs in their throat, such that tests will always give you an increase in numbers. The numbers can just raise panic levels anytime,” Banerjee told IANS.
According to experts, the increase in Covid cases is most likely due to the Omicron offspin XBB 1.15 and XBB 1.16 variants.
According to a recent study published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, the XBB.1.5 virus is highly transmissible and infective. Researchers from Japan’s University of Tokyo discovered that an individual with the XBB.1.5 variant could infect 1.2 times more people than someone with the parental XBB.1 variant.
XBB.1.5 also has the “potential to cause the next epidemic surge,” according to the researchers.
The doctors, however, believe that a surge is unlikely.
“Unlikely to say that this is the next surge. Most of the patients have got very very mild disease and they are recovering spontaneously by day five or day seven, they’re completely asymptomatic,” Pandit said.
“There is no indication of any surge by XBB lineages as it is causing no severe disease. Covid has already been like a flu for more than a year. After the second wave, we never had a wave which is more severe than a flu,” said Banerjee, who is also Professor and Head of Community Medicines, D.Y. Patil Medical College, Pune.
“We just keep counting and raising the panic levels. We need to stop merely counting the cases and see if there is any increase in hospital admission or deaths. We are just chasing the common cold virus,” he added.
Meanwhile, according to a recent study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Covid-19 vaccines and boosters are effective against the highly transmissible sub-lineages of Omicron — XBB and its subvariant XBB.1.5.
The most recent CDC study discovered that, despite the variant mismatch, the booster is still protective against XBB.
Banerjee stated that natural infection affects approximately 80-90 percent of the Indian population and that “it is as good as, if not better than, vaccines.”
Pandit urged for the need to continue “doing the genomic sequencing to understand if there are any clusters with new variantsa, and “keep a close eye on people who are at high risk — elderly and those on immunosuppressive therapy”.
Source:OCN
