BENGALURU: With Omicron looming large over the state, a not-for-profit collective of doctors and healthcare and technology professionals have taken it upon themselves to explain how Omicron is different from previous variants of COVID-19.
Project StepOne has played a vital role in gathering volunteers and collaborating with the state government to both train and educate citizens on COVID-19, and provide services to those who have been afflicted with the virus. In a webinar organised by the not-for-profit startup, a number of doctors involved with the organisation broke down the aspects and features of the Omicron variant as well as what’s changed from previous variants.
Dr Shuchin Bajaj, one of the doctors volunteering at the collective, highlighted the differences between the Delta and the current variant, saying, "Omicron is a milder variant as compared to Delta, since Delta was quick to enter the respiratory tracts to the lungs, so patients with milder cases of Delta had pneumonia."
He went on to explain that Omicron does not enter the lungs, instead it infects the upper respiratory tract.
He also said that the Omicron variant hasn't been recorded to rob patients of their sense of smell and taste. Further, while Delta and Omicron shared symptoms like cough, cold, fatigue and headache, they differed in that Omicron had a prevalence of cough with the presence of phlegm, and backache and headache being common.
However, fever was on a lower scale compared to Delta. Volunteers with the organisation said the collective would be involved in treating mild cases of COVID-19, as it had done previously. They also encouraged citizens and other doctors to become volunteers to help treat people free of cost, as part of the collective.