If hospitalisations & deaths stay low, Covid could begin to look less like an unmanageable pandemic & more like a seasonal disease like influenza. For policy-makers, that’s the goal.
The variant of concern designation is given to strains that are believed to be transmissible or can cause severe disease. Vaccines, treatments may also be less effective against it.
The study in journal Nature says ability of vaccine-induced antibodies to neutralise variants of concern was comparable to or greater than that against the original strain.
NITI Aayog Member V K Paul said the govt is keeping track of how Delta plus variant progresses in other countries, and if it is present in India, to search where all it is there.
UK data shows over 90% of new Covid cases in the UK are of the Delta variant, and health experts are of the opinion that it may resist effectiveness of vaccine to some extent.
It has about a 40% higher transmission rate compared with alpha, which already had a 50% higher transmissibility than the original Covid strain, based on data coming out of the UK.
According to a recent study by a Modi govt panel, Delta variant was 'primary cause' behind India's second wave and is 50% more contagious than the Alpha strain first spotted in UK.
UK study says single-dose recipients of Pfizer vaccine are likely to be less protected against 3 coronavirus variants of concern — B.1.617.2 (India), B.1.351 (South Africa) and B.1.1.7 (UK).
London: The Delta variant of COVID-19, or the B1.617.2 highly transmissible variant of concern (VOC) first identified in India, has now become the dominant...
Indian govt officials last month skipped Turkish National Day celebrations in Delhi, in a message to Ankara following its support for Islamabad, particularly during Operation Sindoor.
Bihar is blessed with a land more fertile for revolutions than any in India. Why has it fallen so far behind then? Constant obsession with politics is at the root of its destruction.
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