COVID-19| Subsequent waves will depend on circulating variants

Srinagar: In a major reprieve, the new cases of Covid-19 have been falling in J&K for the past few days, Saturday reporting 82 positive cases.

An expert said that the subsequent behaviour of the viral pandemic would depend on the circulating variants.

   

Social and Preventive Medicine expert, Dr Rouf Hussain Rather, who works in the Divisional COVID Control Room, said that the third wave might have already hit J&K and being “quite mild” might not have been noticed much.

“We saw a rise in cases in Srinagar, Budgam, Baramulla and a few other districts in the month of September. We may or may not call this a wave,” he said.

Dr Rather said that the intensity of the waves of pandemic in future would largely depend on the variant and strain of the circulating virus.

“If the strain doesn’t change majorly in its genetic make-up, we may not see any worrying spike at all,” he said.

Dr Rather said that the most circulating strain of the virus in J&K currently was Delta as per the last genomic sequencing data available with the department.

He said that it was due to the vaccination and immune response due to previous infections that the susceptibility to Covid-19 had decreased drastically in J&K.

“The vaccine coverage is improving and we have a good sero-prevalence as well,” Dr Rather said.

He advised people to continue exercising Covid-19 Appropriate Behaviour.

“It is not gone yet and things can take a turn any time,” he said.

Meanwhile, 82 new cases of the viral infection were reported in J&K and 122 people were reported to have recovered.

Of these, 37 are from Srinagar, in conformity with the trend of the pandemic.

There was no Covid-19 death and no new case of Mucormycosis in J&K on Saturday, as per the official data released on the pandemic.

In the past 24 hours, 44,406 tests were carried out and reported.

The positive percentage of samples has been on the decline constantly.

Today, the positive percentage among the samples tested was reported to be 0.18.

There has been a steady reduction in the positive percentage and in the past two months, since August, it has dropped to one-tenth.

Currently, there are 855 active cases in J&K.

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