New Delhi: India’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic has completed two years, but there is still uncertainty about when this war to deal with the virus will end. The country is currently facing the third wave of pandemics. In the last two years, the country has also faced various forms of Coronavirus. During the second catastrophic wave of the pandemic, while the delta variant of the virus wreaked havoc, the infection spread very rapidly due to its Omicron variant.
Exactly two years ago today, on 30 January 2020, a girl student who returned to India after taking the semester examination at Wuhan University in China was found infected with the coronavirus. Since then, India has faced three waves of Covid-19, during which mutation caused many forms of the virus, some of which proved to be extremely fatal.
So far 4.94 lakh people have died due to corona in India
According to official figures, so far 4,10,92,522 cases of coronavirus infection have been confirmed in India, while 4,94,091 people have died due to this epidemic. According to the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortia (INSACOG), seven such forms of coronavirus have been found in India during the last two years, which are a matter of concern. These include alpha, beta, gamma, delta, b.1.617.1 and b.1.617.3 as well as the AY series and Omicron formats.
Omicron is responsible for the current wave of corona
Of these, the Delta and Omicron forms of the coronavirus have been considered fatal. During the second wave of the epidemic, a large number of people were infected by the delta form of the corona, and thousands of people died due to this. The Omicron form of the coronavirus is believed to be responsible for the current wave of Covid-19 in the country. A senior official said that till January 2, genome sequencing of 1.5 lakh samples has been done, out of which 71,428 samples have been found to have worrying variants.
Confusion persists over the end of the pandemic in India
To deal with the epidemic, health experts have advised to follow covid appropriate behavior and intensify the vaccination campaign, but it is not yet clear when the epidemic will end in India. Dr. Poonam Khetrapal, Regional Director for South-East Asia, World Health Organization, said, “We are still in the middle of the pandemic. So the focus should be on preventing the spread of virus infection and saving lives.”
Eminent virologist Dr. T. Jacob says that there is a need to wait for how the outbreak of the epidemic will be in the future.
