India / 9 out of 10 people affected by Omicron were fully vaccinated: Govt

New Delhi: At least nine among 10 persons getting infected by the highly transmissible Omicron variant of Covid-19 are fully vaccinated, an analysis of 183 Omicron cases in India by the Centre showed.

Sharing the results of the analysis Friday, the Centre emphasised that “vaccine alone is not sufficient to contain the pandemic” and reminded that the use of masks and surveillance is key to breaking the chain of transmission.

The analysis, released by Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, showed 27 per cent of the cases did not have a history of foreign travel — indicating the presence of Omicron in the community.

It also shows that 87 persons were fully vaccinated (91 per cent) of which three had received booster shots too; and only seven among the 183 persons were unvaccinated while two were partially vaccinated. The Centre also informed that the vaccination status of 73 of those analysed was not known and 16 were not eligible for vaccinations.

The head of India’s Covid-19 task force, Dr V K Paul, warned that the Omicron has a higher risk of transmission within the households as compared to Delta. “It is clear that it is spreading in households because Omicron is highly transmissible compared to Delta. That one person who brings in the infection from outside, because he didn’t wear a mask outdoors, will infect others in the house. This risk is higher in Omicron. We should keep this in mind,” Paul said.

“I want to emphasise the need for care. There are upcoming festivals and New Year and the new variant has emerged during this period. Therefore, responsible behaviour such as wearing a mask, hand hygiene and no crowding is the way forward. Unnecessary travel has to be avoided. We can’t be in large groups. There needs to be constant vigil. The containment and surveillance strategies remain to be one of the major approaches to control the pandemic. We have the vaccination but that alone is not sufficient to contain the pandemic. There should be special emphasis on contact tracing and perimeter control,” Paul said.

The analysis, in terms of clinical symptoms, also shows that 70 per cent of patients are asymptomatic. “The predominant strain in India is still Delta, including the recently-identified clusters. Therefore, we need to continue with the same strategy: Covid-19 appropriate behaviour and ramping up vaccination. The infection with Omicron does not necessarily lead to severe symptomatic clinical disease. In India, about a third of all the detected cases were mildly symptomatic and the rest were asymptomatic. Therefore, I want to emphasise that treatment of Omicron in symptomatic individuals remains the same,” DG ICMR Dr Balram Bharghava said.

On Friday, Paul also appealed to the private sector hospitals to be ready to “repurpose the beds, should the need arise”.

“The preparedness includes the entire health system-level preparedness. The private sector will continue to play a very important role in managing the pandemic…we request them to do the audits and oversight of their availability of drugs and oxygen and go back to their facility-specific SoPs, so that we are truly ready,” Paul said.

“Human resources are very important. To run the infrastructure, you need teams. A huge effort has been mounted by the government to create teams and train them. The same thing applies to the private sector. Therefore, an overarching preparedness, in the wake of Omicron, is launched and undertaken,” Paul said.

During Thursday’s meeting on Omicron, Paul said, the Prime Minister’s first message was on district-level infrastructure preparedness against a possible surge.