A third wave of the coronavirus is inevitable—it’s not we who are saying this but public health experts. Dr K Vijay Raghavan, the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Central Government has warned that a new wave will soon hit the country after the second wave of COVID-19. During the recently concluded media briefing by the Union Health Ministry, the Centre laid down some facts stating how vaccines and other important resources need to be updated in order to control the spread of the new variants. Here are some takeaways.
1. “Phase 3 [third wave] is inevitable, given the high levels at which this virus is circulating. But it is not clear at what time scale this Phase 3 will occur. New variants will arise all over the world and in India too, but variants that increase transmission will likely plateau,” said Dr K Vijay Raghavan.
2. NITI Aayog member and chief of the national expert group on vaccines VK Paul said, “If anything more is required those options are always being discussed. There’s already a guideline to states to impose restrictions to suppress the chain of transmission.”
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3. Stressing on the need to update the vaccines to make them effective against the new variant, Dr K Vijay Raghavan said, “Vaccines are effective against current variants. New variants will arise all over the world and in India too but variants that increase transmission will likely plateau. Immune evasive variants and those which lower or increase disease severity will arise going ahead.”
4. Talking about the efforts being made to curb the third surge, the advisor said, “Scientists of India and all over the world are working to anticipate these kinds of variants and act against them rapidly by early warning and developing modified tools. It’s an intense research program, happening in India and abroad.”
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5. While the first and the second wave affected the young and elderly, the new wave is expected to infect children on a large scale. We don’t even have vaccines for kids yet. Hence, enhancing medical infrastructure to treat COVID-infected kids is the need of the hour.
Virologist Dr V Ravi said, “The government should take some important policy decisions on what is their approach towards starting school the next academic year, considering that the next wave will affect children. Kids will also be more vulnerable because they are not vaccinated. We don’t have enough pediatric COVID care wards and intensive care units for children. This has to be urgently scaled up.”
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6. Asking the Centre to be well prepared, the Supreme Court said, “The third surge in India, which is around the corner according to experts, will affect children. So, when a child goes to hospital, the mother and father will also have to go. That is why vaccination will have to be over for this group of people. We need to plan for this in a scientific way and thus make arrangements.”
7. Justice DY Chandrachud told the Centre, “But, if we prepare today, we will be able to handle Stage 3. A buffer stock needs to be created. It’s not just about allocating oxygen to a State, but equally logistics of a proper oxygen audit takes place and a proper modalities for distribution [sic]. That’s why I said other States can be looked at.”
With inputs from ANI
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