South Africa will remain on the lowest 'level 1' of its five-level lockdown strategy to fight the COVID-19 pandemic despite the global panic around the detection of the Omicron variant in the country, President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced .
'There will be many Omicron cases in India, but much less hospitalisation and death than you had in the Delta wave'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Saturday briefed about the new 'Omicron' variant of the coronavirus, and he asked officials to review the plans to ease international travel restrictions in light of the 'emerging new evidence.'
Kang said that "at the moment, India is doing fine" but maintained that surveillance should be ensured to "detect signal of any changes in the behaviour of the virus".
The fate of India's upcoming tour of South Africa amid the trepidation triggered by new COVID-19 variant Omicron will be addressed when the Board of Control for Cricket in India holds its 90th Annual General Meeting in Kolkata on Saturday.
The Kraken COVID-19 variant accounts for almost 41 per cent of all Covid infections.
'We know, from our experience of this virus, that there's something known as long COVID-19, where you have this persistent fatigue and some people have lost their neurological acuteness and they are not as sharp as they used to be.'
Vinay K Nandicoori, Director CCMB, stressing the need to follow Covid appropriate behaviour, said there is always a concern that all these variants have the ability to escape the immunity and can infect people who are vaccinated and even sometimes infected with the previous variants of Omicron.
The study also indicated that the risk seems to increase with each infection.
The world is witnessing the fourth surge of the COVID-19 pandemic and India has to be on guard and cannot afford to slacken, said Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Friday.
'If you think you think you're going to booster yourself out of the pandemic, in COVID-19's case, you can forget it.'
'In India, a deadly wave of infection with the Delta variant stole 240,000 lives between April and June and disrupted economic recovery. Similar episodes could take place in the near term,' said the report.
As the Omicron strain spreads across the globe and questions on vaccine inequity dominate discussions, scientists are still scrambling to learn more about emerging variants of the deadly virus that has claimed millions of lives and crippled economies.
'Unless we see four weeks of low and stable numbers with only minor fluctuations, we cannot call the valley as endemic just as yet'
It was on January 30, 2020 when a third-year medical student from Wuhan university tested positive for coronavirus, becoming the country's first COVID-19 patient, days after she had returned home following semester holidays.
Gates, 66, on Tuesday, said that "I know it's frustrating to go into another holiday season with COVID looming over us. But it won't be like this forever. Someday the pandemic will end, and the better we look after each other, the sooner that time will come."
Two known Omicron sub-variants -- rather than any new variants -- have chiefly been responsible for the recent Covid-19 surge in China, according to a study of cases in Beijing published in The Lancet journal.
The move came soon after Belgium confirmed a case of the B.1.1.529 variant in someone who had travelled back from Egypt earlier this month, with the European Union (EU) member states agreeing to a snap travel ban on seven African nations.
Recovering from a two-session carnage, equity benchmark Sensex rebounded 887 points on Tuesday, led by gains in index majors ICICI Bank, HDFC twins and Infosys amid a positive trend in global markets. According to experts, global equity markets are slightly relieved after studies pertaining to the Omicron strain of COVID-19 suggest that even though it is fast spreading, it is largely milder than the Delta variant. The 30-share BSE Sensex ended 886.51 points or 1.56 per cent higher at 57,633.65.
'A patient visits for any other treatment, but a routine Covid test finds him to be positive.' 'Not only are they, but their whole family is also coming out to be positive.'
As coronavirus infections surged in Mumbai, the city could witness a peak between January 6 to 13 and take a month for the cases to see a decline, according to researchers at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.
As India witnessed the highest number of Covid cases in over four months, former All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) director Dr Randeep Guleria on Wednesday said the new XBB.1.16 variant could be driving the recent rise but emphasised there was no need for panic as long it does not cause severe illness and deaths.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning went on the offensive saying "we do not believe the entry restriction measures some countries have taken against China are science-based".
'There is no emergency of a third wave that we are rushing for booster doses.'
'These number surges will be the outcome of emerging virus variants, loss of vaccine- or infection-acquired protective immunity in people, and environmental factors'
The most important finding of the study was that the Spike-protein neutralising antibodies found in the mixed vaccine groups were significantly higher than the same-vaccine groups, D Nageshwar Reddy, Chairman of AIG Hospitals said.
Voluntary use of masks must be promoted in the country in view of Covid-19's new XE variant, healthcare experts said, calling it the single-most effective intervention against all variants of the coronavirus.
A man who had arrived from Nigeria and six of his family members who tested Covid-19 positive and their tests had 's' gene dropout were doing well and the officials of Greater Chennai Corporation were involved in monitoring the primary and secondary contacts of his family members, Tamil Nadu Minister Ma Subramanian said on Wednesday.
Videos circulating in China's social media showed clinics in Beijing and some other cities flooded with patients with queues extending onto footpaths with people patiently waiting for their turn in the cold winter.
With variants cropping up at regular intervals, Jha acknowledged that they are a concern as a very rapid evolution of this virus is being seen over the time.
The spike in the country's financial capital has got pronounced since December 20, when just 283 cases were reported. Tuesday had witnessed 1,377 cases in the metropolis, and Wednesday's figure was a jump by over 80 per cent, he pointed out.
'People who were vaccinated early on, for example, from January to April this year, namely health workers, the elderly, and the immunocompromised, should be identified for a booster dose.' 'We should start getting ready for administering booster doses to them on priority.'
Maharashtra minister Varsha Gaikwad on Thursday said that schools for Classes 1 to 9 in the state can be reopened for offline classroom sessions from January 24.
'In our ICUs, the majority are unvaccinated people.' 'Out of the hospital, in the community, we see that -- whether you are vaccinated or whether you're not vaccinated -- the symptoms are more or less the same.'
China's Zero-COVID-19 case policy is increasingly coming under stress as the country is reporting a spike in the number of coronavirus infections from different provinces ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games with over 2,500 people undergoing treatment.
'Seek medical help if after five days of the first symptom the fever has not subsided.'
The Chinese government on Saturday ordered the release of people detained over a host of coronavirus-related incidents, a day ahead of Beijing's plan to scrap its three-year-old stringently implemented zero-Covid policy.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Thursday said future decisions on COVID-19 SOPs will be taken in consultation with the Union Health Ministry and the state Task Force, amid a difference between the Centre and the state over guidelines for international travellers in the wake of the new variant of SARS-CoV2.
'Scientific data has proven that masks can reduce COVID-91 transmission by 53 per cent...A booster dose of vaccine, even if it works, is just a temporary fix'
The assurance comes as India's Covid graph dips -- on Friday 1,109 new coronavirus infections were reported -- and also one case of a new Covid strain in Mumbai.
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