Explained | How has India responded to SARS-CoV-2 variants?
The story so far : India began 2021 with the hope that cases would continue to decline as had been the trend from September 2020 and that the two vaccines would help stem the spread of COVID-19. On April 8, with daily cases close to a lakh and higher than it had ever been as per India’s official count, India acknowledged and classified a variant, B.1.617, that came to be known as ‘Delta’, after a new naming convention adopted by the WHO. The genome consortium body, INSACOG, later revealed that the variant had actually been first known in India in December 2020 and was, as of April 2021, present in at least eight countries. Early in the year, India decided to export vaccines to a few countries as part of a ‘Vaccine Maitri’ initiative not anticipating that a devastating wave would mean a greater need for vaccines. Though reports from South Africa suggest that Omicron is not as severe as Delta, the spurt of infections, especially among the vaccinated in Europe and the U.S., has sparked fear in India with some States banning Christmas and New Year gatherings and the Union Heath Secretary writing to States to demarcate containment zones and impose movement restrictions if cases and hospitalisation rise.
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