With WHO designating B.1.1.529 as a “type of concern”, Dr SK Sarin, head of ILBS, which has worked closely with the Delhi government on COVID response and preparedness, said “at least the next For six months, till June 2022″.
His statement has come on the Chief Minister of Delhi one day. Arvind Kejriwal urged the prime minister Narendra Modi To stop flights from countries where the new variant has been detected.
The variant was announced by South African scientists on Thursday and detected in two more countries, Israel and Belgium. Germany, Botswana, Hong Kong are other countries where the variant has been found.
“We know very little, all I can say is that as it has been declared a VOC, our concern for vigilance must be genuine, and especially with respect to travelers from countries that have been exposed to the policy. There must be at least quarantine and isolation on their arrival. And we must enforce our own lockdown – which means maintaining our masks and being extremely vigilant – for at least the next six months, Till June 2022, until the version of the concern is over,” Dr Sarin said.
At the height of the most recent wave, scenes of congested hospital corridors and patients desperate to gain admission became common, especially in large government hospitals.
At that time Lok Nayak Hospital was the biggest center for treatment of Kovid. According to Dr Suresh Kumar, Medical Director, preparedness for the rise in the situation of Kovid has been a continuous process.
“Only after the second wave, we are continuously working to prepare ICU beds and oxygen supply, so in that sense we are ready. People need to be more alert and careful with COVID-appropriate behavior and not lax in wearing masks,” he said.
The hospital also has a genome sequencing laboratory, which is important for detecting new variants.
“Given that the positivity has been so low in Delhi, the number of samples we are getting for genome sequencing is also less. We haven’t received any new instructions on this.
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