Multiple strategies to tackle Omicron spread
The Hindu
Focus on ensuring that COVID care does not follow the Delta pattern and non-COVID care does not suffer
Thiruvananthapuram As the State braces for a potential spread of the Omicron virus variant, multiple plans and strategies are being planned so that the health system saturation does not happen and that non-COVID-19 care does not take a hit as it did during the peak of the Delta wave.
“It is a different set of challenges that we might be up against this time if a community transmission were to take place. While there is no need for a knee-jerk reaction, there are huge uncertainties whether we should anticipate that the situation involving Omicron may turn out to be as bad as Delta was,” says a senior public health expert.
Till now, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, U.K,, said that there was nothing to suggest that Omicron was any less severe than Delta. But the latest study from Imperial College, London, concludes that the chances of Omicron-infected people being hospitalised is 20-25% less than that of Delta and that the chances of having a hospital admission of more than a day are less than 40-45%.