Lower number of hospitalisations and occupation of ICU beds amid an unknown swell in COVID-19 infections is a “ huge relief”, Biocon speaker Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw told CNBC-TV18 in an exclusive interview on January 3.

On the Omicron variant, Mazumdar-Shaw said the variant is “ surging presto, but also descends snappily”, adding “ We need to brace ourselves for numerous variants, Omicron isn’t the last.”

She added that hospitals are “ more set this time and we’re veering towards an aboriginal situation” and that Delta “ should also not be a huge solicitude” as we now know how to deal with it.

Her statements came as COVID-19 cases are rising and as the Centre launched vaccinations for 15-17 time- pasts in the country.

It’s important that we need to look at vaccinating children sooner or latterly. So we need to speed up pediatric trials as soon as possible and start taking rolling reviews on the vaccination trials for children below the age of 15,” Mazumdar-Shaw added.

She also noted that the private can help better emplace the new vaccines that have been approved, adding that they should also be given access to genome sequencing

I also believe that we need to ramp up our genomic sequencing, which I suppose needs to be opened up to the private sector as well,” she said
.