COVID-19: Omicron may spread six times more than Delta, says Telangana health director

Omicron variant might spread six times more than the delta variant, however, the variant might cause mild symptoms, said, Director of Health Department, G Srinivas Rao.

"As far as Omicron variant is concerned, it may spread very fastly, six times more than the delta variant but the good thing with this variant is, it may cause mild symptoms, if that is the case it is good news," Rao told ANI.

"But we have to wait and watch how it is going to react especially with the vulnerable population which is elderly people, children. It will take two more weeks to understand the virus," he added.

"As far as the Omicron variant is concerned, we have put the system in place. So far the variant has not entered the country. We have intensified the surveillance mechanism in the Airport. We have deployed around 10 mobile health teams, coming here, they have to undergo thermal screening and there are around 12 countries recognized by the government of India, the international passengers coming from there have to undergo mandatory RTPCR testing," he added.

"If they tested positive, they will be shifted to a designated health Facility and their health status will be monitored for a period of 14 days. These samples will be sent for genome sequencing, if they are found negative they are allowed to go for Home Quarantine. Again on day eight, they have to undergo the RTPCR test again. So their health status will be monitored by our health staff," he stated.

"We request the people to follow covid protocols and get jabbed," he stated.

( With inputs from ANI )