Telangana Health officials warn people against mass gatherings

The Health Department on Wednesday urged people in Telangana to avoid crowded gatherings, areas, marriages, upcoming festivals including Christmas, New Year’s Eve and Sankranti and ensure everybody wears masks, maintains physical distancing and gets vaccinated.

There is ample evidence that Omicron is highly transmissible than the earlier Delta variant of SARs-CoV-2 and it is clearly airborne. The people have learnt a lot of lessons from the past two waves of the pandemic. This is the time for all of us to wear masks, avoid crowded gatherings, festivals and only invite close family members to marriages. 

There is a clear increase in vaccine breakthrough cases due to the Omicron variant. However, for those who get vaccinated, chances are that the severity among them will be less, Director of Public Health (DPH) Dr G Srinivasa Rao on Wednesday said.

The general public must be extremely cautious and take precautions in every walk of life, as Omicron will find it very easy to proliferate. In UK, the Omicron variant is doubling every 2.5 days while in some other European countries it is doubling in just 1.5 days, health officials said.

“If families are



making plans to travel with their elders, this is not the time for that. We are expecting a surge of infections in the next few weeks and there is a possibility that even the healthcare systems in Telangana are overwhelmed during the surge. This is the time to get vaccinated and take extreme precautions for the next few months,” he said.

Extensive use of masks, physical distancing, getting vaccinated, having proper ventilation at offices and homes and use of hand sanitization are the only measures that are available to prevent Covid infection.

“Since this is a new variant, we do not have enough data on the disease progression among children and elderly when they test positive for the Omicron variant. Taking all possible precautions are the only thing that we have under our control. In the last few days, the mask compliance among the population has improved to 50 per cent in Hyderabad. 

However, this has to improve to 100 per cent and all of us must wear masks even when we are indoors. Masks play an important role in Even inside the houses, we must wear masks so that other family members are not infected,” Dr Rao added.