Omicron hits both vaccinated and unvaccinated people: Senior health official

He said the variant can slice through immunity systems.

Omicron doubles every 1.5-3 days and it means the infections will be in millions if the wave attacks us, Dr Purohit told UNI.

Omicron as of date gives us no reassurance and these three factors are enough to launch a third wave in India, he said.

Anxiety mounts as a second case of the Omicron has been detected in Andhra Pradesh today, he said the person who tested positive for the variant is a 39-year-old female, a foreign traveller who had landed at the Chennai International Airport from Kenya on December 10.

She was tested on reaching Tirupati and declared RT-PCR positive for COVID-19 on December 12. Her swab sample was sent to Centre For Cellular And Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad for genome sequencing and the result was declared as positive for the Omicron variant on December 22 , Dr Purohit said.

The noted Epidemiologist informed that this is the second case of Omicron variant identified after a 34-year-old man, who returned to Vizianagaram district in (Andhra Pradesh) from Ireland late last month, tested positive for the new variant.

Cautioning that the Omicron variant of the virus is surging across the world, Dr Purohit, who is also National Communicable Disease Control Programm Advisor, said the United Kingdom is reporting over 80,000 cases a day, including 12,000 Omicron infections while the United States is experiencing the fourth wave already.

He said that in India, the figure of Omicron has crossed 200 and it may look small, but the rate of growth is rapid.