Whether or not a new mutant of Coronavirus detected as Omicron BF-7 in China will hit India again? No one can predict its surge in India at a moment when Indians thought and concluded that the Covid-19 pandemic was phased out or dying out since early this year.

However, Dr. Virendra Singh has a different take. The world renowned chest expert and president of Rajasthan Hospital sounded a warning on Thursday saying, “There is a possibility of emergence of a dangerous mutant, Omicron BF-7, in the country that can jeopardise all our previous efforts made since 2019.”

Dr Singh, who is also Medical Advisor-Covid 19 to chief minister of Rajasthan, said it was imperative to observe Covid protection behaviour during indoor gathering and in public transport.

A genome sequencing of positive samples should be carried aggressively as that is the way the new mutant could be identified, he opined.

“The world’s strategy to tackle the deadly virus is/has been different from China. Entire covid-19 game is done by China as it avoided restrictions of isolation and asked the infected people to work now. This resulted in immunity compromise, and rising co-morbidity deaths.

What would be the behaviour of the Indian population is still unknown? General speculation is that Indian people already have pre-existing immunity due to prior infection. Majority of people took vaccine and booster doses against Covid-19’s variants including Delta and Omicron,” Dr. Singh, who was the editor in chief of Lung India magazine for ten years, analysed.

As of today, only ten new corona positive cases (all from the Jaipur district) were reported while 32 districts of Rajasthan are corona free, a state-level Covid-19 medical bulletin said.

The infection figure fluctuates from one to ten in December month. So far, 9,653 patients out of a total of 13,15,390 positive cases have died of Covid-19 since March 2020. Of the total afflicted people, over 13,05,679 were recovered.

Meanwhile, the State Health Secretary has called an emergency meeting of health experts tomorrow to review the covid situation and plan a future strategy.