Daily COVID-19 cases significantly rising in India: Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Thursday reported that India is now seeing an average of 966 new COVID-19 cases per day, a significant increase from the 108 cases per day seen in February. Bhushan's media briefing comes hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a high-level meeting on COVID, the seasonal flu and India's public health preparedness yesterday.

Providing an update on the current COVID-19 status in India, Bhushan added that the weekly positivity rate has risen from 0.09 percent in February to 1.08 percent now. He reported that there were 1650 cases in Maharashtra, 1093 cases in Gujarat, and 979 cases in Kerala. The positivity rate in Maharashtra is 4.49 percent. Bhushan also noted that the most recent COVID deaths were of co-morbid individuals.

In terms of global numbers, the health secretary noted that there are still over 94,000 new COVID-19 cases being detected every day. The US accounts for 19.2 percent of total global cases, while Russia accounts for 12.6 percent.

He emphasized that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is mutating and changing over time, and the Omicron variant now has over 1,000 variants. Regarding COVID variants, Bhushan said that most of the assigned variants in India are Omicron's, which have no significant impact on the functional attributes of the virus-like increased transmissibility, disease severity, or immune escape.

He added that over 1,000 Pango lineages of Omicron have been identified, and only a few variants are designated as sub-variants under monitoring or variants of concern based on transmissibility, disease severity, or immune escape.

Bhushan stressed that there is no evidence to suggest any increase in hospitalization or mortality due to the XBB.1.16 or XBB.1.5 variants, which are under intense scientific scrutiny but are not a cause of immediate concern. XBB.1.16 had 105 cases found in Maharashtra, 93 in Telangana, 57 in Karnataka, 54 in Gujarat and 19 in Delhi.

In terms of vaccination, Bhushan said that over 220.65 crore total doses have been administered in India, with more than 90 percent of individuals over 12 years of age receiving both doses and 27 percent taking a precautionary dose. Bhushan reported that around a lakh COVID-19 tests were conducted in the past 24 hours in India.

He advised elderly and co-morbid individuals to avoid crowded areas and engage in masking, and states were advised to focus on the 5-fold strategy of Test-Track-Treat-Vaccination and COVID-appropriate behaviour. In addition, he advised states to enhance lab surveillance, test all Severe Acute Respiratory Illnesses, and conduct mock drills in both government and private hospitals to check for COVID preparedness.

Since the past six months, 2 percent random sampling of all international passengers at airports has been conducted, Bhushan said. He added that there is currently no plan to enhance this sampling.

India is keeping maximum data in the public domain, and other nations will determine how they share data with the World Health Organisation. The nation's G20 Presidency is not linked to it must respond to the WHO, but the priority is on global health and creating a medical countermeasures platform with digital interventions to improve universal health coverage, he added.

Lastly, Bhushan discussed the flu, saying that it is a seasonal disease present globally for decades. He mentioned that vulnerable populations for the flu include pregnant and lactating mothers, children, and the elderly, and that influenza vaccination in many nations is customized based on the type of flu, which is not yet common in India. He also noted that there are isolated cases of Avian influenza and Swine flu in India.

In an interaction with CNBC-TV18, Dr Vaishali Solao, Head - Critical Care, Fortis Hospital said that influenza every year does have a peak of cases and what we are seeing now is also a similar peak. She also emphasized that COVID cases rising is a matter of concern, but not a matter of panic.

Talking about COVID Solao said, “People just need to take more and more precautions and the only way out of this is basically more and more precautions and vaccinations. So it is a matter of concern but not a matter of panic.”

Talking about spread of new variants, Dr Vishal Rao, Member, Karnataka COVID-19 Task Force mentioned that they do not see any reason to hit the panic button. He said, “We will continue to see new variants come up very regularly, we will see new variants come up very commonly, it's going to be very crucial for us to monitor them to understand which one of them will reach a critical point to create infectivity like delta.”