The Omicron Led COVID-19 Third Wave Is A Reality Now As USA, Europe Get Ready: India Must Gear Up Fast!
It is very
difficult at the moment to get a comprehensive Omicron-cases dashboard globally,
and therefore, we’ll have to rely on various news sources and experts’
opinions. In terms of Omicron cases the United Kingdom has been on top with
more than 45000 cases, followed by Denmark and Norway. But as per the
statistics in the US the daily infections there are over 250,000 in the last 24
hours and in view of the Omicron being the dominant virus the numbers there
should be on top of the list. One source puts the total number of Omicron cases
there at around 260,000. President Biden, perhaps sensing another uprising against
more curbs, has advised the fully vaccinated persons to make travel plans in view
of Christmas and the New Year holidays, and to boost up testing; and maybe due
to similar apprehensions most European countries are enforcing post-Christmas
curbs. Only the Netherlands becomes the first country to impose a lockdown till
mid-January. Israel is the first country to have administered the fourth jab to
its citizens. Other countries of the world like Canada, South Korea, Japan and Australia are also
being impacted by the surge of new cases.
All countries must
follow the advisories issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) the latest
of which warns that the Third Wave might push the health systems of the affected
countries beyond the breaking point due to the exponential spreading capability
of Omicron and it has been asking all to administer the booster doses as
double-vaccination is seen to be not enough at the moment. The WHO has also advised
people across the globe to suspend all holiday travel plans, apart from
strictly observing the other norms.
Coming to India,
the Government on Tuesday, the 21st of December, 2021, had sounded
an alert that the Omicron variant is at least three-times more transmissible than
Delta and advised all the states to activate their war rooms, to ramp up
testing and genome sequencing and consider imposing curbs like night curfew in the
most affected districts. Several states have already imposed curbs like section-144,
ban on large gatherings and Karnataka becoming the first state so far to ban
all Christmas and New Year celebrations and parties. When most of the western
countries are more less set to miss the festivities twice in a row the Indians
should not be much concerned about missing out on these. The Prime Minister of
India, Narendra Modi will take a review meeting on Thursday, the 23rd
of December 2021 on the Omicron situation in the country. The real concern is
now that people are in a celebratory mood and elections are round the corner.
In terms of Omicron
numbers Maharashtra again leads with 65 cases so far followed closely by Delhi
with 54 and other states with lesser figures. However, the real picture of the spread
of the new virus may be quite different; because of the laxity in testing and
tracing aggressively and the slow process of genome sequencing apart from many people
almost giving up the masks. Fortunately, so far, most of the 213 Omicron patients
are either asymptomatic and showing only mild symptoms. It is almost certain
that the numbers will grow exponentially soon thanks to its unbelievable
transmissibility, but the uncertainty about if it would be less severe than the
Delta or any other mutant rages on.
Experts are divided
in their opinions; some say there is no evidence to suggest that Omicron would
be less severe than Delta while others maintain the lack of sufficient data to say
anything now. An expert from South Africa while speaking to a news channel had
a very radical view: he said it’d be better to be infected with Omicron allowing
it to run its course as the resultant illness would be milder and most
importantly, it’d immunize the infected against most of the mutants of SARS-Cov-2
virus; this view is again a vote for achieving herd immunity the harder way
which can always turn too costly in terms of lives lost. Whatever it eventually
turns out to be, it is always better to get ready for anything.
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