Sigh of relief

15/06/2021

Now that the second wave has nearly dissipated, India is beginning to open up. Is it the right decision to have a goal of eventually lifting all restrictions when faced with four questionable situations? The States have set their schedules and pace for lifting the lockdown. There is a general sigh of relief that the second wave of COVID-19 has nearly abated. Most States are bound to lift the lockdown completely by the third week of June. Call it a coincidence, but that is around the same time the UK Government originally proposed to remove all legal limits of social contact. However, it has since decided to delay the process by a few weeks in view of infections from the Delta variant of Coronavirus, the B1.617.2 Variant of Concern (VoC) first identified in India, again rising in the country. The VoC designation - assigned by the WHO - means the variant may be more transmissible or cause severe disease, not succumb to medical treatment or evade immune response. The British Health Secretary has said that over 90 per cent of the new cases comprise this variant which is 40 per cent more transmissible. The United States says Delta has a "wild type" transmission and is beginning to get worried about its presence in the country. The Delta variant is also the one that kick-started the second wave in India, which was at its worst in April and May when life became an agony for millions of infected people.
India entered May reporting nearly 400,000 cases, coupled with scarcity of medicine, oxygen and beds and even spaces in crematoria. Everybody in India, including scientists and doctors, have predicted a third wave three or four months from now. The Delta variant the UK and US talk about originated in India and there is no evidence that it has died out. In fact, reports from the UK suggest that it has mutated into a more virulent version called AY.1 or Delta+. Four, while India followed the UK when it came to increasing the gap between vaccine jabs to three months, it is deciding not to when it comes to moving towards lifting the lockdown. Considering India's terrible experience with the second wave, would it not be prudent to slow down the lockdown lifting process? The States have the option of reducing the pace of opening up to ensure in the meantime that the vaccination process finally gets streamlined, that vaccine unavailability and hesitancy both stand resolved and that virologists and the National Task Force obtain proof that the vaccines are effective in reducing hospitalisation and deaths.

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