SIGH OF RELIEF
Finally good news has come in context with the new variant of the COVID-19, which allegedly has wreaked havoc in China, US, Japan, Korea and Brazil as a senior scientist in the country has assured that there is no need to worry about severity of this new mutant of the contagion. This assertion by Rakesh Mishra, Director, Tata Institute for Genetics and Society (TIGS), Bengaluru has allayed the fears of many who were feeling choked after the Centre has issued warnings to states and UTs to ramp up preparations on account of BF.7 sub variant of Omicron Variant of COVID-19. The stance taken by the government was also appreciable because it is always better to gird up loins against such kind of situations which are unpredictable and can affect the population in a dangerous manner. Now when the words have come directly from horse’s mouth, people could breathe a sigh of relief but taking precautions all the time is not at all a bad idea as still COVID-19 is prevalent in the country and fresh cases are being reported from across the length and breadth of India. It is pertinent to mention that a vital point has been raised by the aforesaid scientist about disease causing havoc in China and that point is that the Dragon nation has not passed through different waves of the infection that India had faced. This means that several waves of the pandemic in India have proved to be like ‘blessing in disguise’. It has been averred by the same scientist that BF.7 is a sub-variant of Omicron and therefore its main features will be like Omicron except some small changes, and this is good for the population in India as many people have already gone through the Omicron wave and are immune to this variant which is essentially the same like Omicron. One can say that most Indians have acquired hybrid immunity which means immunity developed through vaccines and also natural infection protecting them from different COVID-19 variants and therefore the threat level from the aforesaid variant and some others is quite low as compared to China and some other countries making India safer and robust against the virus.