Srinagar: Noted pulmonologist and Head of the Chest Diseases Hospital Srinagar, Dr Naveed Nazir Shah Tuesday said that COVID-19 pandemic is not over yet as new variants, though ‘mild’ in nature, continue to emerge in the community.
Dr Naveed said two cases of XE variant which is the combination of Omicron’s two most well-known strains — BA.1 (original strain) and BA.2 (the more infectious strain) — have been reported in India thus far.
He said Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) could be relaxed at the moment as there has been a steady decline in the number of cases and subsequent fatalities in Jammu and Kashmir over the past one month.
However, “we cannot say that COVID-19 pandemic is over as new variants, though mild in nature, continue to emerge in the community. If there is a spike in cases owing to any much infective variant, people will have to readopt SOPs,” Dr Naveed said while talking to the media here.
He said it’s not important as to what sort of variant is active in the community or how many cases are reported. “It’s only the severity of the disease that puts a burden on health-care system and increases mortality rate – which have a serious effect on the social structure.”
Dr Naveed said Jammu and Kashmir has, for the first time in over past two years, reported zero cases and deaths and hoped that situation will be much better in future. He said the admission of COVID-19 patients in the hospitals has decreased as well while rate of testing too has significantly dropped.
“This disease was expected to be endemic, which is always present at a baseline level, and it’s not down to zero like common flu and cold behave in routine viruses. The Delta variant of SARS-COV-2 in the 2nd wave also decreased but in the Omicron variant, infectivity was very high even though severity of disease was very low compared to previous variants,” he added.
