Few hospitals in Kolkata reported hospitalizations of serious patients with lung infections. Although the majority of Covid-19 infections had mild symptoms, genomic sequencing performed in June revealed that the BA.5 sub-variant of Omicron was predominant. Covid-19 pneumonia in a few patients, which is unlikely to be caused by Omicron or its sub-variants, is currently a concern among the city′s doctors.

For the second consecutive day, three people died in Bengal on Sunday. The majority of recorded deaths are in comorbid patients who acquired the infection by chance and did not have Covid-19-induced pneumonia, but doctors are now noticing patients who need oxygen because their lungs have been affected.

Pulmonologist Dr. Raja Dhar, director of pulmonology at CMRI said that few occurrences of severe chest opacity in select patients have been documented, similar to those reported during the wave caused by Delta variant and as a precautionary measure, genome sequencing will be done to confirm the variant.

Experts reported that they were noticing a slow increase in ICU admissions and lung infection cases. The upper respiratory tract is known to be affected by Omicron or its sub-variant, like BA.5, which was observed in the majority of cases. However, the growing lung infection may be caused by another strain hence genome sequencing was essential. The majority of samples revealed the BA.5 strain of Omicron. Currently, whole-genome sequencing was being done for all positive samples with CT values under 30, but the concern was with the increasing numbers which could lead to an increase in hospitalizations.  (Times of India, Jul 4, 2022)