Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) chief Dr Balram Bhargava on Monday said the Covid cases in the second wave of Covid 19 are less severe than the first one.

"If you see the symptoms, severity is very less this time. In this wave, we have witnessed more cases of breathlessness while in the last wave, symptoms like dry cough, joint pain, headaches were more," news agency ANI cited Bharagava as saying. 

He said that in the present wave there are more cases of breathlessness while in the last wave, symptoms like dry cough, joint pain, headaches were more.

The ICMR chief also said that the RT-PCR is a gold standard test that measures two or more genes in the body, and there is no chance of it missing the detection of a Covid-19 mutant through the test.

"I would like to emphasise that the RT-PCR test that we are utilising, they measure two or more genes and they never miss a test… We have always used two or more genes for testing and therefore missing is absolutely impossible… It can find any kind of mutant because it measures two or more genes at different sites," he said.

It is not yet clear if the surge in the spread of infections is the result of the double mutant found in India or the higher rate of transmissibility, he added.

Explaining the present wave, Dr Bhargava said that only a marginally high proportion of Covd-19 patients are of younger age and that the average of patients in the first wave was 50 years and in this wave, it is 49 years. The older population continues to be more vulnerable and are admitted in the hospital in the current wave. He pointed out that in both the waves, 70% of infected patients were above 40 years.