Bhubaneswar: At a time when India, like many other countries is battling the third wave of COVID-19, people need to be much more watchful and cautious while moving out. Today, when Omicron, the less severe but more infectious variant of coronavirus dominates the scene, we must not forget that the other deadly variants still exists and can lead to severity in patients, said Dr Khirod Kumar Rout, Registrar, Asian Institute of Public Health, Bhubaneswar.
Speaking at a public advisory programme organised by the Health Department, Dr Rout said that Omicron mutates multiple times and multiple ways, much different than usual form of mutations seen in viruses. “While mutations usually takes place in the spike protein and amino acids of a virus, in case of Omicron it takes place in non-amino acids, carbohydrate and fat. This makes Omicron much more infectious and capable to evade human immunity,”
“While it has been seen that Omicron variant is less severe, in case of comorbid patients the situation might aggravate. And most importantly, we never know which variant is afflicting a person, Delta or Omicron, as the older variants still exist. So, we cannot afford to loosen our guard,” he added. Vaccination is very essential and most importantly during winter season the virus is unstable and travel longer distance in form of aerosols, so we should be much more watchful, said Dr Rout.
