Two samples in Karnataka found infected with AY.4.2
The Hindu
There is no need for panic since they are not new samples, but people should stay vigilant: Experts
Although two samples from Karnataka were retrospectively found to be infected with AY.4.2 — a sub-lineage of the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 — State health officials and genome sequencing experts say there is no reason to panic as of now.
Scientists have indicated that this new sub-lineage may be more contagious than the original Delta variant. AY.4.2 has now been declared as a ‘Variant under Investigation’ (VuI) in the U.K., where cases are on the rise. However, State health officials said there was no reason to panic as the two samples collected in July were retrospectively found to be infected with this sub-lineage during reanalysis of over 1,300 samples that were genome sequenced in the last few months.
“Both the persons infected are from Bengaluru and were asymptomatic. We identified a total of 50 primary contacts of these two cases and all have tested negative. We did not find any more cases so far with AY.4.2 and this evidence shows that this sub-lineage is not highly transmissible in Karnataka,” D. Randeep, State Health Commissioner, told The Hindu.
Aasheesh Pittie says birdwatching is not very unlike hunting, except that nothing is killed. “You track… you want to follow the bird… see it,” he says about this activity that he has pursued for nearly fifty years. Pittie, the editor of the ornithological journal Indian Birds, author of many classic reference books about birds and most recently, a collection of bird essays titled The Living Air: Pleasures of Birds and Birdwatching, was speaking at an event organised by the Archives of the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS).