Vaccination reduced mortality rate, severity of disease: Expert

VELLORE: The government should adopt a wait-and-watch attitude everyday on the increasing number of COVID cases in India, especially New Delhi and Haryana, noted virologist Dr Jacob John said on Tuesday.

Talking to DT Next, he said, “We should keep a careful watch over the increasing number of cases in our country, which, as of date, is not something to be worried about. Only when the case load increases a lot daily that we need to be worried.”

There have been rumours that the new cases were of a new variant. He clarified, “Omicron is a family of variants. BA.2 was the variant that took over the world but is today prevalent in only specific locations and is not widespread. However, some variants which started becoming recombinants were titled as XA, XB, XC and XD (by scientists and not WHO). XD is a combination of Omicron and Delta, but here too, they have not spread geographically but are limited to only certain pockets globally.”

Is the current spike in cases due to the inefficacy of the vaccine? “Mortality rate has decreased drastically because vaccination worked. No vaccine can prevent infection, but it reduces the severity of the disease, and prevents prolonged hospitalisation and death,” he stated.