Govt’s strategy to tackle Omicron

The Centre Thursday announced that two cases of Covid variant Omicron have been detected through genomic surveillance in Karnataka. The government spelled out its strategy to tackle the new variant of concern –and also answered on contentious issues of the efficacy of vaccines and booster doses. ICMR DG Dr Balram Bhargava highlighted that at present it is premature to comment on the effectiveness of the vaccines against the new variant of concern — and that the Indian scientists have to isolate the Omicron variant, culture, and test it in laboratory settings to ascertain the effectiveness.