India is likely to see as many infections in the Omicron-driven surge as it saw during the Delta wave, said Dr Christopher Murray, Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and Chair of the Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington. While the government has maintained that India has handled Covid-19 better than other countries, the concerns are now growing even as the number of cases crossed the 50,000-cases mark again on Tuesday. He said that although vaccination will keep the symptoms mild, Omicron will infect a large number of people and no amount of restrictions can stop that. In an exclusive interview with India Today, Dr Christopher Murray said the Omicron variant will lead to three billion infections across the world in a span of just two months. “Amid this surge, India could see as many infections it saw during the Delta wave,” he said. Projecting that the peak of transmissions could be attained in mid-January, he said that this would likely amount to over 35 million global infections a day. This is three times the number seen during the Delta wave peak in April. “In India, the number of infections could peak late in January or early February,” he said. “Reported cases will increase at a rate that is less than infections because we expect the much higher fraction of asymptomatic patients will lower the infection-detection rate,” he said. Hospitalizations and deaths in the world will be much fewer than the reported cases, he said. For the US, hospitalisations and deaths will remain below the Delta-peak that was seen in September and well below the winter peaks seen in 2020-2021, Murray said. According to experts a likely third coronavirus wave in the country projected to peak in the country in February 2022, will be milder.
Evidence has shown that the Omicron variant multiplies at a faster rate thereby causing infection at a faster rate and it has also been found that the new variant is also more capable of evading the immune system than delta. They state that if a huge population gets affected by B.1.1.529, the new SARS-COV2 strain, there might be "more of its sub-clans" in the future. However, the cases reported in India have so far shown mild symptoms like tiredness and sore throat and most infected people are recovering from home. Dr Deshdeepak, Senior Chest Physician at the Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital said: "Omicron has been labelled as a Variant of Concern by the WHO. Almost 90 countries have been affected by now. It appears to be highly transmissible. As of now, Delta variant is the most prevalent strain in the world but with high transmissibility, Omicron may take over the Delta variant. "We may see a spike in cases and we may see another wave as it is a new variant that is more transmissible than delta variant. However, cases with mild symptoms have been reported so far," the health expert added. Health experts who have been dealing with COVID patients since the beginning have warned people to continue to strictly follow COVID-19 appropriate behaviour.
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