After the exit of the first and second tumultuous waves of COVID-19 in India, the land is now struck with the fear of ‘Omicron’, the newly found variant. The threat of Omicron and the conjecture associated with the unknown variant is feeding over the minds of the innocents and the curious. Reportedly, the entry of the variant had been recently suspected in the state of Orissa in Bhubaneswar where 7 ‘foreign returnees’ from countries that are ‘at at risk’ have tested positive (Statesman News Service, 2021). The sharp rise in COVID cases within the state had been alarming as the state logged 193 fresh COVID cases (Statesman News Service, 2021). This has accounted for a rise of about 15% in the last 24 hours. The increase in TPR (Test Positivity Rate) is by 0.031% whereas the death toll has undergone an unprecedented surge of 8,444 (Statesman News Service, 2021).

In a study by Phillips (2021), the hydropathic profiling method had been used for the analysis of the spike dynamics of the virus which hugely reflected the increase in contagiousness of the new variant. The most striking and threatening feature of the new variant includes the fact that the variant is a result of 30 mutations of the virus COV-2 (Phillips, 2021). This shows that the new variant is distinguished and more powerful which has led to the elevation of tension among people. To mellow down the stress, the results of genome sequence analysis from the collected samples at Orissa were negative which shows that Omicron is yet to spread widely within the state (Statesman News Service, 2021). Despite the temporary relief, there have been initiates from the state to maintain the hygiene and safety of the state inhabitants.

References

Phillips, J. C. (2021). What Omicron Does, and How It Does It. arXiv preprint arXiv:2112.04915. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.04915

Statesman News Service. (2021, December 20). No Omicron variant case in Bhubaneswar. Retrieved from https://epaper.thestatesman.com/: https://epaper.thestatesman.com/3325456/Bhubaneswar-The-Statesman/20th-December-2021#page/3/2