New Delhi

Paediatric Pulmonologist at Delhi's Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Dr Dhiren Gupta, on Friday called the shutting down of schools due to teachers and students contracting COVID-19 a "knee jerk" reaction and said people who are contracting COVID have mild symptoms.

"With the present trend, I feel it is a knee-jerk reaction. In the last two years, we have destroyed the younger generation as their mental and physical development is wasted. The real investment of a country is children. If they don't progress then after 10 years we will have weak personalities," added Dr Gupta.

"With the present trend, we should not shut our schools and the government should tell us that no schools should have the authority to shut down. When adults are vaccinated and have natural immunity then they are not panicking as well. We should give importance to our kids more than any business or establishment," he added.

The senior paediatrician believes according to data most cases in the past 10 days are mainly due to BA.2 variant. "So we have witnessed BA1, we have witnessed BA.2, and likely those pockets who were less infected or didn't get an infection in the previous phase, now they are getting infected. And in those groups, those who are not vaccinated probably the subgroup is also getting this type of infection and very likely that children from four years to 14 years, who never were exposed to this BA2 variant are now Getting infection," he added.

Speaking about the symptoms witnessed, Dr Dhiren said, "As per symptomatology, either it is like gastro-enteritis where a patient is having loose motion or cold cough. So it is typically behaving like milder influenza till now." He cautioned the public not to panic reading about the case surges and said four to 14-year-old children are going to be a vulnerable population never been exposed to the BA 2 variant or have never been vaccinated."BA 2 variant has more transmissibility compared to BA 1. Symptoms are so mild that we should not panic," he elaborates further.

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On Thursday, Delhi reported 325 Covid cases, a marginal rise from 299 the previous day. The city conducted 13,576 Covid tests of which 2.39 per cent samples were tested positive. Delhi has continued to record an average of 201 cases each day over the past seven days against the average of 120 a week ago