Vaccine Escape Capability Of Omicron Is Very High: Covid Task Force Chief Dr NK Arora

Chairman of NTAGI and India's Covid Task Force Chief Dr NK Arora said Omicron's vaccine escape capability is high but things are manageable.

COVID-19 Omicron variant | Representational Image: Getty

New Delhi: Covid cases in India are on a rise at a rapid rate indicating towards a covid third wave. The Centre taking preemptive measures in order to curb the menace of the virus but the daily covid cases report suggests that more vigil is required. While being ready to tackle the covid situation is one thing, the rate at which the Omicron variant is penetrating is alarming.

Chairman of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) and India's Covid Task Force Chief Dr NK Arora said Omicron's vaccine escape capability is high but things are manageable.

“The vaccine escape capability of Omicron is very high. So what value a booster will do is still being evaluated. However, our primary task is that everybody should get two doses because it has been seen that for all those who have received primary doses, the risk of severity, hospitalisation, and death is much less," Dr NK Arora said in an interview with CNBC-TV18.

Omicron Cases In Metro Cities 

India's Covid Task Force Chief Dr NK Arora also indicated that metro cities are contributing maximum to the tally of omicron cases and as per his estimations almost 75% of covid cases in metro cities are of omicron variant.

"We got our first virus right in the first week of December. So, last week, nationally overall, 12 percent of the variants identified were Omicron, and the week went by in the previous week, it has increased to 28 percent. So, it is rapidly increasing as a proportion of all the Covid infections in the country," he said

"Now, having said that, I must also say something more important and that is that around the major metro cities, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and particularly Delhi, it is over 75 percent of all the isolates now," Dr Arora added during an interview to NDTV.