Lowest Covid cases in 81 days, but Delta Plus is a cause of concern

With 58,419 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, India recorded less than 60,000 fresh infections after 81 days, according to the Union Health Ministry’s data on Sunday. The country witnessed as many as 1,576 deaths and 87,619 recoveries in the last 24 hours. With the new cases, the cumulative caseload has climbed to 2,98,81,965 including 7,29,243 active cases.

The daily positivity rate in the country stands at 3.22 per cent, while the weekly positivity rate is currently at 3.43 per cent. The daily positivity rate has remained below 5 per cent for 13 consecutive days.

However, Delta Plus variant, a mutated version of the more aggressive B.1.617.2 strain that drove the second wave of infections in India, is undergoing additional mutation called K417N which could become a “variant of concern” if unchecked, said AIIMS chief Dr Randeep Guleria on Sunday. He added that India could see a faster surge if aggressive Covid-appropriate behaviour is not followed.

“Delta plus is a variant which is of same lineage as Delta variant, with a slight change as there is one more mutation found, which could be a cause of concern because this mutation, the K417N, is something which may change the virus to some extent as far as its infectivity is concerned… What we need to do is observe. Currently, the WHO has said that this is a variant of interest but it could become a variant of concern because currently the number of cases is less. Will this Delta plus again become the dominant variant that is something that we need to observe over the next few weeks,” Dr Guleria was quoted as saying.

The Delta variant of novel coronavirus has been found to affect people of all age group babies to 80 plus. Women and men are equally hit, though male patients are slightly higher in number. Children, teenagers and those in the 30-39 age groups are also affected by it.

According to Public Health England, which is currently monitoring the Delta variant and its mutations around the world including India, the “age-sex pyramid” of the variant shows the virus affecting people across all age groups. Break-up of Covid-positive cases released daily by Telangana government also shows people across all age groups being affected by the pandemic virus during the second wave.

Dr Guleria also asked India authorities to take a cue from the UK. “The UK did a very good job by having an aggressive lockdown for many, many months and when they started opening up, the new variant, the Delta variant, caused the surge in the number of cases. What it means is we are also in a similar vulnerable situation and if we are not careful right now, then 3 or 4 months from now, we will again have a similar situation and that is why we need to be very aggressive; it is mutating, changing, new variants are coming up,” he said.

WITH AGENCY INPUTS