An Uptick In Covid As A Mild Disease

A few years ago, it would have been news that would have been greeted with alarm, but now it barely registers when Singapore says that there has been an increase in Covid cases there. Its ministry of health recently issued a press release stating that “The estimated number of COVID-19 cases in the week of 27 April to 3 May 2025 rose to 14,200 cases, compared to 11,100 cases in the previous week.” Simultaneously, there were also reports that Hong Kong, too, is seeing an uptick in numbers. Its health authority, too, released a statement that gave details about surveillance data for the week ending May 10. It said, “The viral load of the SARS-CoV-2 virus from sewage surveillance, the test positivity rate and the cases tested positive by nucleic acid tests in the laboratory have continued to rise over the past four weeks.”

India could also be part of the same phenomenon but it is hidden given testing for the virus, public or private, is negligible. Numbers are inching up. Kerala reported 182 cases this month, Mumbai a little under 100. A number of states have seen cases. There is how­ever still no cause to worry because the virus never really went away in the first place. It took the regular trajectory of pandemics by which with every successive wave, humans became more immune and the new variants that came up were more slippery but less severe. Now, even if one is infected, it is no more than a flu infection, with similar symptoms. The only way to know is to test, which there is no reason to do because of the mildness of the disease.

The present increase is said to be because of a variant called JN.1, which is an offshoot of Omi­cron but presents no new danger. As a WHO report on the variant notes, “The available evidence on JN.1 does not suggest additional public health risks relative to the other currently circulating Omicron descendent lineages. Available limited evidence does not suggest that the associated disease sever­ity is higher as compared to other circulating variants.”

Covid-19JN.1 VariantKeralaMumbai