A third Covid wave in India is "inevitable" and could even strike in the next six to eight weeks as people are not following Covid-appropriate behaviour, AIIMS Delhi director Dr Randeep Guleria said on Saturday.
He was referring to the surging crowds thronging markets, with several people amongst them not wearing masks after the lifting of lockdowns in various parts of the country started with the receding of the ferocious second coronavirus wave.
Dr Guleria came out in favour of a gradual lifting of lockdown restrictions as there was a need to "factor in human behaviour while unlocking."
Also read: Govt setting up 18 more labs to zero in on coronavirus strains
"As we have started unlocking, there is again a lack of Covid-appropriate behaviour. We don't seem to have learnt from what happened between the first and the second wave. Again crowds are building up… people are gathering. It will take some time for the number of cases to start rising at the national level. Third wave is inevitable and it could hit the country within the next six to eight weeks or may be a little longer," Dr Guleria lamented in an interview on NDTV.
"A new wave can usually take up to three months but it can also take a much lesser time, depending on various factors. It all depends on how we go ahead in terms of Covid-appropriate behaviour and preventing crowds," he explained.
Vaccination drive holds key
Dr Guleria said that the country's main challenge is vaccinating a huge population. Nearly 5 per cent of the country's population has so far been vaccinated with two doses while close to 20 per cent have got at least one dose. The government aims to vaccinate 108 crore of over 130 crore people in the country by the end of this year with an accelerated vaccination drive being extended to all adults in the country.
He pointed out that until a large proportion of the people are vaccinated "we're vulnerable in the coming months."
Dr Guleria was of the view that mini-lockdowns must be immediatley clamped in parts of the country, which see a surge in cases. A rise in positivity rate beyond 5 per cent should be the benchmark, he added.
Tackling new variants
He also said that a new frontier will have to be developed in India's fight against Covid to further study the mutation of the coronavirus as more aggressive new variants are emerging.
" Last time, we saw a new variant, which came from outside and developed here, leading to a huge surge in the number of cases. We know the virus will continue to mutate. Aggressive surveillance in hotspots is required," the AIIMS chief said.
He said the pandemic has to be tackled with a multi-pronged strategy so that fresh cases don't surge suddenly and overwhelm the healthcare system. Any healthcare system in the world will tend to collapse with the unprecedented rise in infections, Dr Guleria pointed out.
On the Delta-plus variant, the AIIMS chief genome sequencing should be speeded up to see how the virus is behaving. There will be a need to track vaccine efficacy and monoclonal antibody treatment against the new variants.
Meanwhile, as a step in this direction, the government is setting up another 18 genome sequencing labs to keep a close watch on the mutations in the deadly coronavirus. These will be in addition to the 10 existing 10 labs which are giving real time information on Covid-19, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
