The first Covid wave was managed by India just too well, particularly after the Odisha Chief Minister showed the way by first employing lockdown and shutdown to cut off the infection chain fast. Prime Minister Modi had followed suit three days later. The first corona invasion lasted exactly seven months between March and September 2020. By some divine design, the virus packed its bags and left at a time when vaccines had not even showed up or herd community remotely achieved. After infection came down, the Government of India became lax and flung open all doors to let in all kinds of pathogens.
Furthermore, they went on election mode full throttle, and encouraged gullible religious crowds to bump into one another in astronomical numbers- all this resulting in uncontrollable spread of a renewed infection. The saffron biggies also managed to influence the then CJI to overturn his own court order to favour fanatics screaming in favour of the Puri Car Festival to happen. By the time the festival was over, too many were infected.
The second wave came while the whole country was off guard. It overwhelmed the system because the new strain was more virulent and much more infectious. Though vaccines were already out with expert endorsements, most Indians were hesitant to take any. It seems now the second wave is just beginning to pack bags, go and eventually perish. But it is not gone yet. And they say it’s changing shape and traits to strike yet again.
The willing elderly were vaccinated on priority. So, they escaped the second viral invasion to some extent. The non-vaccinated younger lot took the beating badly, many of them succumbing to death. Lately, they have found out a horrific corona strain in India which has also surreptitiously spread across the UK and the US by now.
Rattled Indian authorities are readying for the battle against the third wave expected to be weaker than even the first. Obviously, the best way out presently is rapid vaccination which is happening in India already. At least 9 to 10 million Indians need to be vaccinated everyday to contain the virus and keep people safe. If vaccination gets slower than that, new variants will get time to develop and spread. Undoubtedly, the second wave has taught mankind valuable lessons, particularly in terms of oxygen supply in Government hospitals and community health centres, Odisha being a rare exception. Odisha had so much surplus that after consumption, it transported oxygen to at least 17 suffocating States like Maharashtra and Delhi!
India officially recorded nearly 120,000 fatalities and more than 9 million infections in May 2021 alone, a figure that top-level experts believe is a major underestimate. But on official records, India has nearly 30 million cases and more than 380,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic, which are frightening figures by any standard. There are some experts who maintain that the third wave may still prove to be extremely difficult. They have warned that if safety behaviour norms are not strictly followed by people, and enforcement is lenient, Indians are in for a big trouble again.
Even if lockdown is the primary reason for the recent fall in number of infection cases, the parallel precautionary mask-use, social distancing and frequent hand-washing have been critical too and these precautions have to continue way into the 2022 AD.
By then, global vaccination will have been over and even more highly effective treatment protocols known. So, by then tackling the weakened virus, no matter what the strain, would only be a simple, victory-guaranteed little battle.
But if people show laxity by not wearing masks or wearing it inappropriately or violate social distancing norms and if law enforcement agencies do not penalise heavily to ensure violations do not increase in quantum, then we are certainly in for horrific times. The next wave could be worse than the second wave. By the middle of May, medical masters had confirmed that lockdown alone had brought down the count of daily cases, though severity of covid had not diminished a bit.
The threat of the third wave hitting is for sure, and not a hypothesis. The least-expected second wave hit the India in February when everyone had started going on vacation or indulging in merrymaking and fun parties or socialising in public places.
The second wave hit invincibly and claimed so many lives so fast. Even when best homemade vaccines were being served on a platter, Indians either looked away in disapproval or hid away in holes because some frightened fools had rumoured publicly that vaccines can have irreversible side effects like loss of reproductive capabilities or degrading into magnetic lumps of flesh and blood like inanimate metal. Until the end of 2021, there needs to be an aggressive surveillance strategy in Covid hotspots for selective clamping of lockdowns in the event of any significant or sudden surge of infection. The moment a significant surge in a particular area occurs and the test positivity rate goes above 5 per cent, area-specific lockdown and containment measures have to be implemented as standard protocol.
All this because under no circumstances, country-wide lockdowns and shutdowns can be a solution keeping survival economic activities in mind. Not only are the daily wagers or micro entrepreneurs thrown out of economic safety nets, gigantic corporates too take massive beatings on countless fronts thereby making the country poorer than they can recover easily.
A recent study by Public Health England (PHE) compared the Alpha variant, first found in the UK, with the newly discovered Delta variant discovered in India to know that the delta thing evidently reduces Covid vaccine efficacy. This means there is a larger risk of infections and re-infections. Similarly, another study conducted by AIIMS and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in India corroborates the English inference. The Delta variant can infect people even if they are fully vaccinated with Covishield and Covaxin doses. The study also finds that the Delta variant is more vaccine-resistant than the Alpha variant.
Hopefully, this finding is defective and is manufactured to frighten unruly people everywhere. Because the latest report in hand says Indian vaccines are fantastic and fit enough to contain any covid virus. An American medical expert recently said that fully home-grown Covaxin can dis-empower any corona variant strain.
