"India needs to go back to COVID basics", says Dr Anil Goyal of Indian Medical Association

New Delhi [India], December 22 (ANI): Amid fresh global surge in COVID-19 cases, a public health expert from the Indian Medical Association (IMA), on Thursday, assured that the lockdown situation wouldn't arrive.
In a conversation with ANI about the surge in cases, Dr Anil Goyal from the Indian Medical Association said, "India needs to go back to COVID basics - testing, treating, tracing".
He further assured, "There won't be a lockdown situation in the country" and added, "since 95% of the people here are vaccinated".
Speaking about the immune system of people, he further stated, "The immunity system of Indians is stronger than that of the Chinese..."
Earlier, Dr NK Arora, Chairman of the COVID-19 working group NTAGI had exuded confidence in India's preparedness to tackle the COVID situation and has said that the country can take appropriate action in case of the emergence of a new sub-variant.
The Additional Chief Secretary of Health, Manoj Agarwal has earlier said that the central government has briefed all states to ensure proper screening of international passengers, as well as genome sequencing.
Notably, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to chair a high-level meeting to review the Covid-19 situation and its related aspects in the county.
In the last six months, India reported four cases of the BF.7 Omicron sub-variant, which is driving the current surge of infections in China. Sources said there are currently 10 different variants of Covid-19 in the country, with the latest being BF.7.
Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya had on Wednesday chaired a high-level meeting to review the prevailing Covid-19 situation in the country and the preparedness of the public health system for surveillance, containment, and management of the pandemic.
He urged people to follow Covid-appropriate behaviour and get vaccinated against Covid-19.
Emphasizing that the pandemic is not over yet, he asked officials to be fully geared up to challenge and step up surveillance.
Amid a surge in Covid-19 cases globally, the central government briefed all states to conduct genome sequencing of samples, the additional chief secretary of Health Manoj Agarwal informed on Wednesday.
"Yesterday (Tuesday), the central government briefed all states on the increasing trend of Covid-19 variants in parts of the world and asked them to ensure that whole genome sequencing is done in all states," he said.
There has been an alarming surge in Covid cases in China, Japan, South Korea, France, and the United States. The spike is being blamed on the new Omicron sub-variant BF.7, which has also been detected in four Indian states.
Meanwhile, the last Covid-19 fatality in Beijing, which was seeing thousands of Covid positive cases before the revocation of the Zero Covid policy was on November 23. After it, China stopped reporting asymptomatic patients which is a major part of the Covid tally. The country also scrapped the once common Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) testing apparatus and instead used rapid antigen kits which are known to be a little inaccurate, according to The Straits Times. (ANI)