Even though some cities or states in India may be beginning to see plateauing of Covid-19 cases, the risk persists and the focus must be on reducing transmission and implementing situation-specific measures, senior WHO official Poonam Khetrapal Singh said.
The Health Ministry said on Thursday that early indications of Covid cases plateauing have been reported in certain geographies in the country but the trend needs to be observed.
Responding to a question that coronavirus cases have started plateauing in India, Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia Region said the risk of Covid-19 remains high and no country, irrespective of their current transmission scenario, is “out of the woods” yet.
“Hence, even though some cities or states may be beginning to see plateauing of cases, the risk persists. We need to continue to remain vigilant. Our focus must be on reducing transmission. Implementing situation-specific public health and social measures and increasing vaccine coverage – that’s the way forward for all countries in the ongoing pandemic,” Singh told PTI in an interview.
On January 21, the country reported a total of 3,47,254 new COVID-19 cases after which the daily infection count has been reducing. A decline in Covid cases and positivity rate has been especially observed in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Odisha, Haryana, and West Bengal.
Asked if the pandemic is entering in endemic stages, Singh said, currently “we are still in the midst of the pandemic and the focus should be to curtail the virus spread and save lives”.
“By becoming endemic doesn’t mean that the virus will not be a cause of concern,” she said.
She also stressed the need to rapidly accelerate efforts to vaccinate all at-risk populations in all countries.
“There is growing evidence on vaccine effectiveness for Omicron, but we still have a lot to learn. So far, we think that vaccines are less effective against Omicron infection and symptomatic disease compared to Delta. Having a booster shot seems to increase protection,” she said.
However, vaccines still seem to remain highly effective at protecting people against serious illness, hospitalization, and death, she said, adding that vaccines remain an effective method to reduce the likelihood of severe disease caused by the Omicron variant.
India is presently battling the third wave of Covid-19 driven by the Omicron variant. On Saturday, 2,35,532 people tested positive for the coronavirus infection.
