The recent instance of a 29-year-old (who had returned from New York to Mumbai) testing positive for Omicron even after having taken three doses of the vaccine, has caused health care experts to raise the question on why three doses of the vaccine did not protect him.

Experts are of the view that instead of booster doses, the vaccine industry should accelerate the ‘bivalent’ vaccine containing the Wuhan wild virus and Omicron virus in a single product, so that a booster with such ‘bivalent’ vaccine produces the desire immunity rapidly thereby preventing the rapid spread of Omicron. Dr Wiqar Shaikh, Professor of Medicine, Grant Medical College and Sir J.J. Group of Hospitals, said that people were led to believe that the Omicron variant was mild would not need hospitalisation and would not result in deaths.