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BF.7 variant of Covid-19 may not be serious in India, says expert
2 min read . 01:01 PM IST
LiveMint
As fear has loomed in India due to the emergence of a new variant of coronavirus, an expert alleviating the concern, said the variant BF.7 may not be as serious as it is in China. Vinay K Nandicoori, Director Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) said India has developed “herd immunity” therefore the subvariant of Omicron may not be a big threat.
However, urging people to follow Covid appropriate behaviour, the CCMB director added these variants have the ability to escape immunity.
He said the highly transmissible variant can infect people who are vaccinated and even sometimes infected with the previous variants of Omicron.
“The severity of the infection is not as much as it used to be with Delta. That’s because of the fact that we do have herd immunity to an extent. Actually, we have herd immunity because we are exposed to the other viruses,” he said.
As per the media reports India reported four cases of BF.7 variant of coronavirus.
“We (India) have seen the Delta wave which is a big one. Then we got the vaccination done. And then the Omicron wave came and we continued booster doses. We are different in many ways.
What is happening in China may not happen in India because of that,” he said.
On Sunday, India reported 227 Covid-19 cases while the active cases increased to 3,424, according to data by the Union Health Ministry. India’s cumulative Covid count has surged to 4.46 crore.
The death toll stands at 5,30,693 with two fatalities one reconciled by Kerala and one death reported in Maharashtra in the last 24 hours.
An increase of 27 cases has been recorded in the active Covid-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.
The official said the “Zero Covid Policy” followed by China is one of the reasons for the outbreak of the infection in that country and opined that lower vaccination levels may also have contributed to the severity. “It is actually that (the zero Covid policy that China is followed) and also the fact is in China, not many people really went for the vaccine as it has happened in India all the older population is vaccinated and sometimes even sometimes booster dose has been given to older population or susceptible population,” he said.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday in his Mann Ki Baat radio programme asked people to be vigilant and take precautions against Covid-19 as he noted that the virus is spreading in many countries.
