Even as India has maintained a weekly Covid positivity rate of less than 1% for a month with cases below 10,000 for 20 days, health authorities warned against complacency, highlighting the situation in UK and France that are witnessing a surge due to Omicron despite high vaccination rate and exposure to Delta variant.
Underlining that India faces a stage of “worry” with the onset of winters, with people travelling and partying for Christmas and New Year celebrations, officials said if daily cases in such countries are extrapolated in the context of India’s population, they would mean 14-15 lakh cases a day.
“You are aware from the information in the public domain that situation in parts of Africa but also in parts of Europe has gone worse,” Niti Aayog member-health Dr VK Paul said stressing that pandemic spreads rapidly, particularly with variants like Omicron.
Paul highlighted the example of the UK which reported over 80,000 cases on Thursday despite high vaccination rate and exposure to Delta. “If there is a similar outbreak in India, given our population, there will be 14 lakh cases every day. Similarly, France — where there is 80% partial vaccination — is reporting 65,000 cases. If an outbreak of a similar scale takes place in India, it will mean 13 lakh cases every day.”
“While our new daily cases continue to remain below 10,000 for last 20 days and weekly positivity is below 1% for a month now, we still need to remain cautious, particularly in the context of Omicron,” health ministry joint secretary Lav Agarwal said.
Globally, it has been observed that countries witnessing a surge in overall Covid cases are also seeing an increase in Omicron infected cases. Besides, such countries including South Africa, Norway, Canada and UK are witnessing a steep increase, likely to have been driven by the Omicron variant. At present, there are 19 districts in the country reporting weekly positivity rates between 5-10%, while five districts together in Mizoram (4) and Arunachal Pradesh (1) have over 10% positivity.
ICMR director-general Dr Balram Bhargava advised districts with more than a 5% positivity rate to implement local restrictions and measures till the rate drops below 5% or for at least two weeks.
The Centre also urged people to seek a double dose of vaccines, wear masks properly, avoid mass gatherings and non-essential travel.
