Haunted (season 3)

India’s Delta exposure may ensure Omicron will not create havoc

- REKHA DIXIT

The latest season of variant vs vaccine is playing out. While the vaccines are still running on the original version, the variant is on to its third aggressive update. The vaccines were designed with the original Wuhan template, even though they factored in the possibility of virus mutations. Yet, the Delta variant, which emerged last winter, succeeded in breaching the vaccine immunity. Omicron, this season’s buzzword, is not just three times more infectious than Delta, but has around 30 mutations, because of which it is not just breaching the vaccine barrier, but also the immunity acquired from a past infection.

The government is rolling out two new vaccination schemes—inoculation of the 15-18 age group and a booster or protection dose for frontline workers and senior citizens from the new year. With new developments daily on Omicron’s superpowers in breaching barriers, the question that naturally pops to mind is just where are we headed.

With less than a thousand Omicron cases reported in the country (the overall cases are still around 75,000), it may be too early to say what is in store for India, although studies like those of IIT Kanpur are predicting the wave to peak in February. The good news, say experts, is that Omicron, while a furious spreader, appears to be milder. “Unlike Delta, which went straight for the lungs and took the breath away, Omicron shows an affinity for the upper respiratory tract, causing more symptoms of cough and cold,” said Jayaprakash Muliyil, chair of the National Institute of Epidemiology’s scientific advisory committee.