Any contagion has been always linked with travelers. Same is the case of coronavirus pandemic. In early stages of the pandemic, the officials have always been able to detect and establish the chain of events that led to an infection. It also means that if a traveler A visited city X in India and infected person B, the chain of events can be traced back to traveler A and the point or source of infection is identified. This was what was happening in early phase of contagion in 2020.
Now that the Centre has admitted to the community transmission of Omicron, it simply means that it can’t trace back the origin of the infection. The people who are being infected or are infecting others are likely to be asymptomatic, hence it is very difficult to establish chain of events. In simple words, the virus is spreading locally, within communities and it is not a result of some traveler visiting from a foreign location.
