Even as the world is struggling to deal with the sudden rise in COVID-19 cases due to the Omicron variant, a 'new variant' - Delmicron - which is said to be the combination of Delta and Omicron variants have become the topic of the discussion.
As per the report by News 18, Dr Shashank Joshi who is a member of Maharashtra’s task force on COVID-19 said that the Delmicron, the twin spikes of Delta and Omicron, in Europe and the US has led to a mini tsunami of cases.
Now, while some reports suggested that he was talking about a possible new variant called Delmicron, that isn't what Dr Joshi is talking about. It looks like Dr Joshi was actually talking about a situation where both the Delta and Omicron variants cause a spike in COVID-19 cases in a particular region.
As of now, The World Health Organisation has not said anything about the claims of a new variant taking shape. The national task force for COVID-19 in India as well as the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has not used the term Delmicron.
Meanwhile, Omicron, the latest Coronavirus variant, is probably the fastest-spreading infectious disease known to man, medical expert and Maharashtra government's Covid Task Force member, Shashank Joshi, said here on Thursday.
It has an approximately Rt5 rapid generation time. While for Measles it is 15 days, for Omicron it is less than 5, with a doubling time of 1.5-3 days, Joshi, a diabetologist and endocrinologist, said in a tweet.
"In 60 days after 1 case: Measles: 50,600, Omicron: 244,000,000," he added, but termed it as a "mild disease with lower mortality".
Mumbai scientist and stem-cell expert Pradeep Mahajan said that "Omicron is like a blessing that has emanated naturally to protect humanity", not only from Covid-19 and its other deadly variants, but even deadlier ones likely to come in the future.
"The faster Omicron is spreading, the less virulent killer it is if we study the latest global health data. So there's absolutely no need for us to panic," said Mahajan, who was this week appointed as academic faculty at the prestigious Indiana University, USA, as an acknowledgement of his research in this field.
"Considering all aspects, we can safely say that Omicron will itself prove to be a nature's vaccine, a shield that will take us to a stage where Covid-19 and its variants could be reduced to something like the flu," Mahajan, Chairman of StemRX Biosiences Solutions Pvt Ltd, told IANS.
(With inputs from agencies)
