‘There will be many Covid waves’, Omicron fortunately less severe: Virologist

New Delhi, Dec 31: India's top virologist Dr Gagandeep Kang on Friday warned that many more waves of the Covid pandemic will continue to emerge and advised people advised people to learn to live with the coronavirus.

In an interview to ANI, Gagandeep said that "We will have to learn to live with SARS-CoV-2 and its variants which will continue to emerge. There will be many waves, time and again. But fortunately, Omicron seems comparatively less severe than other variants."

"I believe we should be sending children to school, as generally COVID-19 infections are not much severe in children. Data available to inform a decision as to which vaccine should be used as a booster dose in India is very little," she added.

Union Health Ministry on Friday said that anyone with fever, headache, sore throat, breathlessness, body ache, loss of taste or smell, fatigue, and diarrhea should be considered as a suspect case of Covid, and must be tested at the earliest.

A joint letter by Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan and Indian Council of Medical Research chief Balram Bhargava advised states to set up multiple booths for rapid antigen tests on a 24/7 basis. The officials also asked states to permit such testing at government and private hospitals, including all districts hospitals and primary healthcare centres.

"A rise in Covid-19 cases accompanied by an increase in positivity rate is being documented in various parts of the country. Early testing of suspect patients and their contacts and isolating them expeditiously are one of the key measures to curb transmission of SARS-CoV-2," the letter said.

"Based on the previous experience, it has been observed that if the number of the cases rise above a certain threshold, RTPCR-based testing leads to delays in confirming diagnosis due to its turnaround time of about 5-8 hours," it said.