'Most of the world's vax unlikely to prevent infection from Omicron'

New Delhi: A growing body of preliminary research suggests the Covid vaccines used in most of the world offer almost no defense against becoming infected by the highly contagious Omicron variant.

All vaccines still seem to provide a significant degree of protection against serious illness from Omicron, which is the most crucial goal. But only the Pfizer and Moderna shots, when reinforced by a booster, appear to have initial success at stopping infections, and these vaccines are unavailable in most of the world. The other shots — including those from AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and vaccines manufactured in China and Russia — do little to nothing to stop the spread of omicron, early research shows. And because most countries have built their inoculation programmes around these vaccines, the gap could have a profound impact on the course of the pandemic.

A global surge of infections in a world where billions of people remain unvaccinated not only threatens the health of vulnerable individuals but also increases the opportunity for the emergence of yet more variants. The disparity in the ability of countries to weather the pandemic will almost certainly deepen.

"What you lose first is protection against asymptomatic mild infection, what you retain much better is protection against severe disease and death," said John Moore, a virus expert at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. He called it "a silver lining" that Omicron so far appears less lethal than the Delta variant.

But this protection will not be enough to prevent Omicron from causing global disruption, said J Stephen Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for International and Strategic Studies.

"The sheer scale of infection will overwhelm health systems, simply because the denominator will be potentially so big," he said. "If you have a burst of infection worldwide, a shock, what does the world look like on other side of it? Is it, 'The war is over,' or, 'The war has just entered another phase'? We haven't begun thinking about any of that."

Meanwhile, India's Omicron case count is now at least 171. According to Central and state officials, Omicron cases have been detected in Maharashtra (54), Delhi (28), Rajasthan (17) and Karnataka (19), Telangana (20), Gujarat (11), Kerala (15), Andhra Pradesh (1), Chandigarh (1), Tamil Nadu (1) and West Bengal (4).

With 6,563 people testing positive for Coronavirus infection in a day, India's total tally of COVID-19 cases rose to 3,47,46,838, while the active cases declined to 82,267, the lowest in 572 days, according to the Union Health ministry data up-dated on Monday.

The death toll climbed to 4,77,554 with 132 fresh fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.

The cumulative Covid vaccine doses administered in India crossed 138 crore on Monday, the ministry said. Over 58 lakh vac-cine doses were administered on Monday till 7 pm, it said.