The highly contagious Delta variant of Covid-19 is dominating the world and India is no exception, warned the Government on Tuesday. It also pointed out though there is stabilisation in the number of reported infections in the country, yet reproduction number that denotes the virus spread is more than 1 in five States — Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
Amid continuing fears that a third wave of infections could strike this month, the Government said Delta Plus variant of SARS-CoV-2 has been detected in 86 samples in India, including 34 in Maharashtra, as on August 9.
During a Press briefing on the Covid situation in the country, the Union Health Ministry furnished data that showed the national ‘R’ value crossing the 1.0-mark last month; the last time it was over this level was in March when it was 1.32, and that was before the second wave.
New Covid-19 mutants need to be tracked strictly as they have the capability to arise anywhere, said the Central Government on Tuesday. It said that the Government bodies are carefully monitoring Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Delta Plus variants.
National Centre for Disease Control director Dr SK Singh said, “The variants of concern that we monitor are Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Delta Plus. There are two variants under investigation — Kappa and B1617.3.”
“We were doing two kinds of surveillance - to monitor variants of concern (coming from outside) and to monitor the impact of the Delta variant in the country. Today, we need to look for new mutants because they can reach anywhere any time,” he added.
Niti Aayog (health) member VK Paul said that in the last four months, 86 Delta Plus cases have been detected in the country, which proves that this variant is not more virulent than the Delta variant.
Paul said some new findings on Delta, on the other hand, reveals how strong and fast transmissible the variant is.
It also increases hospitalisation, he said. But as established by recent studies, India has vaccines that are effective against the Delta variant. “We are better placed against Delta,” Paul said.
The increasing trend of reproduction number in some states is cause of concern, although there is stabilisation in Covid-19 cases in the country, said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary, Health Ministry, adding there are significant reasons to enforce pandemic control measures.
Talking about Kerala’s Covid situation, Singh said, “Central Team was sent to Kerala. First, to see how the ‘test-track-treat’ strategy is being implemented, second, surveillance of containment zones with contact tracing being an important factor, the third infrastructure of hospitals and fourth progress of vaccination.”
“The caseload and positivity trend was found to be more than 10. Some districts indicated an increasing trend of positivity rate - Malappuram, Kozhikode, Pathanamthitta. 80% of cases were found to be positive for Delta variant, like other states,” he added. Kerala reported over 13,000 new COVID-19 cases in 24 hours, data from this morning showed. The southern state now has over 1.7 lakh active cases and a cumulative total of 35.66 lakh.
According to the Government (and as of today), Punjab and Himachal Pradesh have an effective ‘R’ value of 1.3, and Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh have ‘R’ values of 1.1 and 1.0. Expected change in daily cases from three states is “likely increasing”; the trend from Punjab is “increasing”.
Other states reporting high ‘R’ values are Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh (both 1.1), and Goa and Nagaland (both 1.0). The trend in daily new cases from these is “stable”.
“No matter how low (daily) cases are, if ‘R’ value is over 1.0 it should be cause for concern,” Agarwal said on a day India reported 28,204 new cases in 24 hours - the lowest in five months.
Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have reported a combined 36.91 lakh cases so far. Gujarat has reported over 8.25 lakh cases, Madhya Pradesh nearly eight lakh and Punjab around six lakh. Himachal Pradesh has reported over two lakh cases, Goa around 1.7 lakh and Nagaland 28,000.
Concern over the ‘R’ value has been expressed repeatedly by experts over the past few weeks. In June this number was less than 0.75. Since then it has inched its way up - a potentially alarming statistic hidden, to some extent, by declining daily new cases. In early July the national ‘R’ value was around 0.87 and by the middle of the month it was 0.95, said experts.
