New COVID-19 strain: Govt is alert, no need to panic, urges Harsh Vardhan

Union Health Minister addressed concerns about the emeregnce of the new strain of coronavirus saying the government was on alert and he urged people to not panic.

New Delhi: Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan addressed the concerns about the emeregnce of the new strain of coronavirus in the United Kingdom. Harsh Varshan of Monday said the government was on alert and he urged people to not panic. 

"The government is alert. There is no need to panic," Harsh Vardhan said at at the curtain-raiser for the 6th India International Science Festival-2020 (IISF 2020). 

“As of now, there is no need to get involved with these imaginary situations, imaginary panic,” Vardhan said.

“The government is fully conscious about everything. If you ask me, there is no reason to panic the way we are seeing in this press conference,” the minister said, adding that the government had done everything that was important to handle the COVID-19 situation in the last one year.

On Sunday, evening the Union Health Ministry had expressed concerns about the emergence of a new, mutated strain of the coronavirus in the UK and had called for an urgent meeting of its Joint Monitoring Group on Monday (December 21, 2020).

“The Joint Monitoring Group (JMG) chaired by the Director General of Health Services (DGHS) will hold a meeting on Monday morning to discuss the issue of the mutated variant of the coronavirus reported from the UK. WHO’s India representative Dr Roderico H Ofrin, who is also a member of the JMG, is likely to participate in the meeting,” news agency PTI quoted a source as saying.

In the meeting, the challenges posed by the new mutated variant of coronavirus and its impact is likely to be discussed.

The concern is emphasised due to the sharp rise in the number of cases of infections in the UK which has led to a stricter Tier-4 lockdown. Also, a number of European countries have banned flights from the UK as the British government warned that the potent new variant of the virus was “out of control”.