The third wave of the Covid pandemic has already waned in India, and the general public in the nation is slowly returning to normalcy. However, several medical experts believe that it is not the time to lose the guard as a fourth wave of the pandemic could hit the country anytime soon.
Amid looming scare, several Asian countries including China and Hong Kong are witnessing a fresh wave of Covid. According to medical experts in these nations, the new wave of the pandemic is triggered by a variant of Covid known as the 'Stealth Omicron'.
Stealth Omicron: The highly infectious Covid variant
Medical experts reveal that the newly detected Stealth Omicron is a sub-variant of the highly transmissible Omicron, which caused the third wave in India.
Stealth Omicron combines two sub-variants of the Omicron version of the Covid virus named BA.1 and BA.2.
A recent study carried out by researchers at Denmark's Statens Serum Institut (SSI) suggests that the Stealth Omicron is 1.5 times more infectious than its predecessor.
RT-PCR tests may fail
Researchers believe that it is pretty much hard to detect Stealth Omicron using RT-PCR tests. It is because the new variant misses several key mutations in spike protein, which are generally required for rapid PCR tests to identify the infection.
According to experts, the Stealth Omicron usually affects the upper respiratory tract of the patients, and it will not drastically affect the lungs.
It is still unclear whether this newly detected variant of Covid will trigger the fourth wave of the pandemic in India.
