No need to panic, says Jain on new variant, case rise

New Delhi: The Delhi government is keeping a watchful eye over the COVID-19 situation and there is no reason to worry until a new variant of concern is detected, Health Minister Satyendar Jain said on Monday amid reports of the XE variant being identified in India.

Interacting with reporters here, the minister also sought to allay apprehensions over the steady rise in daily cases in Delhi and the positivity rate remaining over one per cent during the last few days.

"The count of daily cases in Delhi is being reported in the range of 100-200. We are keeping an eye on hospital admissions, and that is going down. Focus shouldn't be on positivity rate much as of now," Jain said.

Delhi reported 141 fresh Covid cases and one more death on Sunday, while the positivity rate stood at 1.29 percent, according to the daily health bulletin. The positivity report has been hovering above the one per cent-mark in the last few days. On Monday, the city reported 137 fresh cases, with a daily positivity rate of 2.70 per cent.

Significantly, it is now apparent that the rise in positivity rate has been due to the reduced daily testing, with doctors in the Capital urging the administration to increase testing as much as possible.

Jain's office released a statement on Monday evening, quoting him: "The XE variant is yet to be classified as a variant of concern. New variants of the virus are being discovered around the world almost every other day, and many more will emerge as time passes. We have to understand that unless a variant is deemed as a 'variant of concern' by the WHO, we need not be worried about it."

"However, we still need to keep our guards up and follow the rules pertaining to the pandemic containment ", he said, adding that the Delhi government has taken all necessary precautions beforehand to tackle any rise in cases.

Responding to questions on the precautionary doses of Covid vaccine, Jain said all preparations are being made and all eligible people would get it.

On the lifting of the mask mandate, the minister said, "The cases have gone down substantially and the hospital admissions have followed suit as well. Only around 49 people were admitted into hospitals, which is a significant fall in numbers from around 150 people being admitted a month ago".

"Also, don't think it's due to laxity as such. We have to understand that Covid is a pandemic of the century, after the Spanish Flu of 1918. We will have to learn to live with Covid," he told reporters.

"There is no need to panic. The only way to prevent the virus from spreading is to take precautions and follow all the protocols related to Covid safety at all times," he said

The WHO has issued a warning against XE, a new variant of Omicron first detected in the UK, and suggested that it could be more transmissible than any COVID-19 strain so far.

The Union health ministry has said that only Gujarat has reported this variant for now but the administration in Mumbai had declared that a woman who had returned from South Africa had also tested positive for this variant. However, the Union health ministry has said the Mumbai case is not one of the XE variant.