India’s current Covid surge not witnessing severe illness and deaths: Dr Balram Bhargava

The current upsurge in Covid cases are not witnessing severe illness and deaths following the high uptake of Covid vaccines, said Dr Balram Bhargava, DG, Indian Council of Medical Research on Thursday here.

“Vaccines have remained beneficial in India. Deaths have considerably reduced due to vaccinations. In this third surge of COVID19, we are currently not witnessing severe illness and deaths due to high vaccination uptake”, said ICMR chief. However he added that those with comorbidities must monitor the health and avoid any complications.

“Vaccine prevents death and therefore is a must. Deaths are very low in this wave because of very high uptake of Covid vaccines which is 94 per cent of first dose in adults and 72 per cent full dose in the country”, Dr Bhargava said.

While speaking about the Covid tests, Dr Bhargava said that an increasing trend of home covid tests has been observed in this current surge. “In these 20 days of the year, we have seen 2 lakhs home tests” he added.