Steady rise in number of Covid-19 cases: Government not considering travel curbs, mask mandates for now

New Delhi: The federal government has no plans for journey restrictions, masks mandates, and even suggestions for booster photographs regardless of a gradual rise within the variety of Covid-19 circumstances, a senior official within the well being ministry advised ET.

Whereas public well being consultants say that Covid-19 circumstances will enhance in winters, they, nevertheless, burdened that there is no such thing as a have to get one other vaccine shot because the potential to trigger extreme sickness from the most recent variant of coronavirus is lower than the earlier variants.

“Our greatest info is that the present Coronavirus vaccines, even these based mostly on the ancestral pressure equivalent to these administered in India, ought to proceed to work on JN.1. The illness severity related to the sub variant JN.1 is anticipated to be akin to the opposite circulating variants, not worse,” mentioned Gautam Menon, professor of physics and biology at Ashoka College.

Anurag Agrawal, a former head of Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (Insacog) and chair of the World Well being Group’s technical advisory group on virus evolution, nevertheless, mentioned that for very weak individual, the Omicron variant’s up to date vaccine as a booster could have worth. “Not price it for the overall inhabitants,” he added.

Consultants say there is no such thing as a renewed threat of Covid-10 inflicting extreme sickness. “Thus far no clustering or severity in sickness has not been seen,” mentioned a member of Insacog, the community of laboratories set as much as monitor genomic variations of the coronavirus.On Thursday, 358 new circumstances of Covid had been reported in India, of which 300 circumstances had been from Kerala alone. The positivity charge in Kerala is above 30%. Six deaths had been reported on Wednesday and to this point, 23 individuals have died within the final two and half weeks.In India, the XBB variant continues to stay dominant, the info suggests.

An INSACOG member, talking on cthe ondition of anonymity, mentioned JN.1 has not been detected in sewage surveillance, indicating that there aren’t any widespread infections. JN.1 is seen as the primary trigger of recent Covid circumstances within the US. It has additionally been reported from China and Singapore. On Tuesday, whereas declaring JN.1 a variant of curiosity, WHO mentioned it didn’t pose a lot menace to public well being.