Srinagar: With a new and alarming Variant of Concern Omicron on the horizon, the world seems to have been taken by a storm due to its potential to cause another massive wave of disease and deaths.
Greater Kashmir spoke to some experts about what the variant entails and what can be done to safeguard oneself and family.
Declared to the world on Monday by the Network for Genomics Surveillance in South Africa (NGS-SA), the B.1.1.529 and named Omicron by the World Health Organization just today, the new variant of concern has emerged as a threat given its reported “lightening fast spread”.
Prof Parvaiz A Koul, ex-head department of Internal and Pulmonary Medicine at SKIMS Soura and Vice Chairman of Middle East, Eurasia and Africa Influenza Stakeholders Network (MENA ISN) said there is no wisdom in thinking that some parts of the world are yet spared and the new variant has not reached there.
“By now it must have spread everywhere. If it is being reported from here, there, it sure has reached a number of places,” Prof Koul said. He said a number of people who had traveled through the ‘affected’ countries, are in quarantine and it was yet unknown how many were infected.
Omicron has been reported to have at least 32 mutations and 2000 cases have been confirmed, spread over a number of countries.
“There are reports that someone got infected just by passing near an infected individual,” Prof Koul said, adding that the high transmissibility and possible evasion of immunity could make this variant ‘deadlier than Delta’.
“Even if the virus does not cause severe disease and imagining that the effect and symptoms are the same as Delta, but if it spreads and infects a higher number of people, we will eventually have more hospitalizations and more deaths,” he warned.
Prof Koul said people need to strictly follow COVID19 appropriate behavior and adopt masks. “Even in the most dangerous of settings, masks have helped people steer clear of transmission. It is the most sure shot protection we have,” he said. While drawing attention to the number of deaths among unvaccinated people in Kashmir, he said, it was unfortunate that Kashmir still has people who could get vaccinated but have not gone for it. “Vaccination is a must, not just for yourself but for the families we are part of,” he said.
Dr Naveed Nazir Shah, head department of Chest Medicine at GMC Srinagar said the new Variant may very well have reached India and two South African nationals had been quarantined in Bengaluru as they had tested positive. “We are yet to know whether they are infected with the Omicron variant or some other but the amount of traffic between countries and populations makes it difficult to contain the spread of variants especially if these are as contagious as it is being understood as,” he said. He said it would take a while to understand how the new variant is affecting the world but “early reports” showed that there needs to be an increased vigil. He said GoI has directed its various departments and offices to review the international travel guidelines. He said locally, people need to avoid all unnecessary travel and socialisation.
Dr Shah said it was “alarming” to see how masks have been abandoned in Kashmir and how people were mixing up at social events without any masks. “Even without Omicron, we are at a precarious position right now and we have so many people losing life everyday,” Dr Shah said.