Omicron has started replacing Delta as dominant COVID variant in India: Official Sources

As COVID is once again beginning to show an upward trend, official sources on Friday confirmed that Omicron has already started replacing Delta as the dominant variant in India. Delta is still the most common variant in the majority of countries, but Omicron has started spreading very quickly and is already dominant in Australia, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and, even in India, as per sources. 

As per Professor Dale Fisher, a senior consultant at the National University Hospital's Division of Infectious Diseases in Singapore, a global transmission from Delta to Omicron was being seen because 'with greater transmissibility, the virus is fitter and has a reproductive advantage'.

However, he added a caveat that the reports of the Omicron rates may be biased as some countries do little gene sequencing, and those that do may be looking for deletion in a specific spike gene to identify Omicron, instead of carrying out whole-genome sequencing.

Omicron was first detected on November 11 in South Africa, then in Botswana and Hong Kong, before it rippled across more than 110 countries, as at last weekend. India's first Omicron case was detected on December 2 and in a mere span of 28 days, it has crossed the 1,000-mark with 1,270 cases. The cases have been detected across 23 states and Union Territories so far. Maharashtra has recorded the maximum number of 450 cases followed by Delhi at 320, Kerala 109 and Gujarat 97.

'All COVID-19 vaccines are disease-modifying, they don't prevent infections'

Meanwhile, in the scenario of transition from Omicron to Delta as the dominant COVID variant, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) issued a clarification on vaccines and vaccination. DG Dr Balram Bhargava of ICMR stated that all COVID-19 vaccines in the world are primarily disease-modifying, they don't prevent infection. 

Speaking at the briefing of the COVID-19 situation in the country by the Union Health Ministry, Dr Bhargava said, "All COVID vaccines, whether they are from India, Israel, US, Europe, UK or China, are primarily disease-modifying. They don't prevent infection". He added, "The move to introduce the precautionary dose in a phased manner is primarily to mitigate the severity of infection, hospitalisation and death". 

If the total number of cases of COVID are to be seen, India saw 16,764 new infections being reported in a day. The number of infection-related fatalities in 24 hours stood at 220. 

(With PTI inputs)