Coronavirus News Live Updates: India records 2,067 cases, 40 deaths

Coronavirus India Live: A healthcare worker collects a swab sample of a woman for Covid-19 testing, at a market in Jammu, Friday, April 15, 2022. (PTI Photo)

The Pune-based Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Virology (ICMR-NIV) has reported three episodes of Covid-19 infection in a healthcare professional. The report was published in the Journal of Infection on Tuesday. The professional had primary SARS-CoV2 infection, breakthrough infection with Delta and reinfection with Omicron over a 16-month period.

NIV researchers said the findings of the study prove the immune evasion potential of the Omicron variant, even after infection and vaccination. In the case of the 38-year-old healthcare professional from New Delhi, researchers at NIV said the patient had a breakthrough infection with Delta derivative (AY.112) and reinfection with the Omicron sub-lineage BA.2. Although the clinical specimens of the primary infection couldn’t be characterised, the probability of B.1 as an infecting variant would be higher as the infection occurred in October 2020, when emerging variants had not been detected in India.

Just when the pandemic seemed to be getting over in India, the rise in cases in Delhi and Haryana has begun to sound alarm bells once again. The silver lining, as of now, is the fact that the rise in cases has been restricted in these two states, basically Delhi and its neighbourhood, and has not been reported from other parts of the country.

Unlike the other major cities such as Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai or Pune where the number of daily new cases dropped to the lower double-digits, Delhi has continued to report a significantly higher number of cases, over 100 per day on an average.