The BF7 Covid-19 variant, which is currently ravaging China and causing, according to unofficial estimates around 5000 daily deaths, my spare India the worst, according to a top official at the CSIR- Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB).
Media reports say that India has reported four cases of BF.7 variant of coronavirus. However, Indians may not have cause for worry from severe illness as experts suggest the country has herd immunity from other viruses and also from a robust vaccine coverage.
Speaking to news agency PTI, Vinay K Nandicoori, Director CCMB, said that despite the relative security Indians must practice Covid-appropriate behavior as the new variants can have the ability to bypass immunity and infect those who are vaccinated or have had the disease earlier.
Nandicoori dismissed the possibility of an immediate Covid wave arriving in India. However, he said that it was difficult to say whether a wave may or may not strike India at all as neighbouring China witnesses a surge in infections.
India acts to contain Covid
China’s skyrocketing infectons have led India to tighten its controls on the domestic Covid situation. The Prime Minister during his monthly radio programme Mann Ki Baat cautioned Indians and asked them to be vigilant amid the developing situation.
From December 24, India has started random testing of international passengers at the Delhi airport According to an order by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, airlines are required to direct their crew members to lead and bring identified 2% of international passengers to the testing facility at the airport.
In another effort to boost defences, the Indian health ministry has also mandated a Covid-19 negative test report for travellers arriving from China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Thailand.
How safe is India from BF7?
Indians now have hybrid immunity – that is immunity from vaccination and from already being infected. This keeps them safer from the highly transmissible BF7 variant which is a sub-lineage of the Omicron variant BA5. The R value (or the number of people the virus can infect) is 10-18 for BF7 while the R value for Omicron variant was 1-5.
Experts have said that while the virus is good at escaping the immune defences, it is not as concerning as Delta.
While India is not expected to experience a fourth Covid wave, it can expect ripple-effects of the infections in China. India can see an uptick in cases corresponding with the peaks of the disease in China.
China’s Covid tsunami is predominantly attributed to its unscientific and often shoddily-implemented zero-Covid policy. As people became fatigued by the long and strict lockdowns, they grew increasingly frustrated and there was an outburst of rare anti-regime protests in the country where public expression is tightly controlled by the Communist regime. This pressure is believed to have made the Xi Jinping administration buckle and relax the zero-Covid restrictions. But I the absence of herd immunity and vaccine coverage, this unleashed a storm of cases across the country.
