Hummingbird News Desk
NEW DELHI, 7 MAY: The third wave of coronavirus may not hit the country if strong measures are taken and effectively implemented at the state, district and city-level, the country’s top scientific officer said on Friday.
This comes as a departure from his earlier comment where he warned the country of a third wave of the pandemic. In his earlier warning two days ago, K Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, said a third wave seems inevitable given the high levels of the virus in circulation, though it’s not clear when the third wave may attack. As people are building immunity against the virus, the virus is finding new ways to infect people. That’s how the virus has worked so far.
He said the “insidious asymptomatic transmission” can be stopped if the guidance about precautions, surveillance, containment, treatment and testing is followed.
“If we take strong measures, the third wave may not happen in all places or indeed anywhere at all. It depends on much how effectively guidance is implemented at the local level in the states, districts and cities everywhere,” he said.
Explaining the evolution of the SARS-CoV2 virus, VijayRagahavan said the virus, when it emerged, was a ‘generalist’ that could infect a variety of species; something like a “rough, crude key that can fit into many locks”.
But increased transmissibility and selection pressure made the virus more refined and specific. In other words, emergence of variants that are fitter, more infectious or at times capable of evading immune response or vaccines.
The emergence of such variants, however, does not change “what we need to do”, the geneticist said. “The variant doesn’t alter the message. It does not acquire a new mode of transmission. Covid-appropriate behaviour can actually help significantly,” VijayRaghavan said.
But he said variants were just one factor that contributed to the emergence of the second wave. The stringent restrictions initiated last year may have prevented large-scale immunity in the community as well as a drop in caution as the first wave ebbed, contributing to the second wave, the top scientist said.
Asked specifically at the briefing if the government was looking at the option of a national lockdown, as being recommended by some, Dr V K Paul, who heads India’s Covid-19 task force, said “Those options are always being discussed. Those decisions as required will be taken.”
Paul said, “When the spread of the virus is excessive, then movement needs to be reduced. In this context, on April 29, detailed guidelines were issued, specifically that where test positivity is more than 10% or bed occupancy is more than 60%, states have been advised on (imposing) night curfews here… Based on these advisories, states are deciding. In addition to these restrictions, if anything more is required, those options are being discussed.”
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