New Delhi, January 15: As a new study from South Africa suggests that the Omicron Covid-19 variant is less severe even for the unvaccinated, Indian health experts on Saturday warned that it was too soon to come to any conclusion and the highly-transmissible strain should not be taken lightly.
According to the experts, the Omicron variant is said to cause less severe disease. However, people should not stop taking precautionary measures, following Covid-19 protocols or getting vaccinated.
“It is too soon to tell if this variant is less severe even for the unvaccinated. We definitely are witnessing less severity of symptoms in vaccinated people, so it is extremely important to get the vaccine,” Tushar Tayal, Senior Consultant, Internal Medicine, Narayana Superspeciality Hospital, Gurugram said.
“The majority of people are facing mild symptoms or are asymptomatic, but we still do not know the long-term side effects of this variant, therefore I would urge everyone to exercise caution and not take Omicron lightly at all,” Tayal added.
The South African study, led by the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) in the country, suggests that unvaccinated people who were infected with the highly-infectious Omicron variant are less likely to fall seriously ill, require hospitalisation, or die compared to the previous Covid strains.
The study comes at a time when the Omicron variant is spreading like a wildfire across the globe, including India. South Africa has witnessed the fourth wave which is now flattening.
