Srinagar (J&K): As India lives through another wave of Covid-19 driven this time by the highly infectious Omicron variant, there are more questions about the pandemic now than ever. Is Omicron really milder? Does herd immunity exist? When will all this end? These and several other questions hover in everyone's mind. To clear some air, ETV Bharat's Pervez Ud Din spoke to Dr Muhammad Sultan Khuroo, a world-renowned doctor and chairman of Apex Level Advisory Committee for Covid-19 in J&K.
The Omicron variant, Dr Khuroo said, can affect the elderly with comorbidities and children, and make them very sick though it does not attack the lungs in the same way as Delta.
"Delta affected nose, throat and lungs which caused severe breathing difficulties for the patient and thus increasing the oxygen need. It was the reason why during the second Covid-19 wave, around 20% of the victims needed oxygen beds in hospitals," he said.
Dr Khuroo, however, said that Omicron was probably the fastest spreading virus in human history. "Research has found that the world's fastest-spreading virus was Measles. But Omicron has spread even faster. The virus has become the first to spread so rapidly in the last 100 years," he said.
The former SKIMS Director said that it would be premature to consider Omicron as common flu as the Coronavirus pandemic was changing its form and it was possible that a fourth wave could emerge from the ongoing situation. "...little can be said about it (4th wave)," he said.
Read: '10 lakh Omicron cases in India in 2 months', warns Kerala Covid expert panel member
Dr Khuroo stressed that vaccination was one of the major means to avoid the severity of the disease. He said the difference in the number of deaths in the second and third waves was a clear indication of how potent vaccines were in preventing deaths.
The administration in Jammu and Kashmir has imposed a weekend curfew besides other restrictions to curb the increasing number of Covid-19 cases. The union territory, in the last week, reported more than 5,000 infections each day
Commenting on it, Dr Khuroo said that no one was in favour of lockdown as it caused problems to the people. "However, it is important to keep in mind that if the third wave is not controlled, the number of patients in hospitals could increase as it did last year," he said.
Dr Khuroo urged people to adhere to Covid-appropriate behaviour and not pay any attention to the rumours being spread on social media about the disease.
Read: ETV Bharat exclusive: Children prone to be affected by new Covid variant, warns expert
