Third wave may not be as severe, say experts

The third wave of Covid-19 is unlikely to be as severe as the first and the second wave, public health experts told ET. While the Delta variant was responsible for causing major destruction, experts say that the coming weeks could see flare-ups but limited to certain geographies.K Srinath Reddy, president, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), said if Delta variant remains the dominant one, then India will see infection and spikes only in some pockets.He is predicting a mild third wave, because a very large number of people got infected by the Delta wave and many have got vaccinated. "Many would have acquired immunity against the Delta variant, some of the immunity may be fading but some of it will remain. The vaccination rate is also growing. If you are going by that, then it is more likely to have a mild and scattered third wave rather than a country-wide one," he said. 87034628Top virologist Gagandeep Kang believes the number of cases is likely to stay in the same range as they are now. According to her the 3rd wave will depend on concentration of people that are unvaccinated/inadequately protected."So, if there are groups of people this would happen in family clusters, it could happen in community clusters that have people who have not taken the vaccine and not been exposed previously, you might see a climb in cases and infections there, once the virus is introduced. But I think because we are so spread out over the country, we are not going to see a lot of cases happening all together like we saw in the first and the second wave. We will see flare-ups, we will see odd cases here and there," she said.Experts believe cases may go up a little because of festivals and the winter season. Reddy said we will have to keep a watch. "One week after Diwali will tell us where we are," he said. Senior epidemiologist Giridhara Babu said there will be outbreaks in the areas with low seroprevalence and poor vaccination coverage. "The proportion of such areas and timing of the outbreaks will determine how it will add up at the national level. What we call us third wave is not really something that is compatible with the second wave, it might be multiple bumps over a period in several areas," he said.India is seeing a low number of Covid cases. The ICMR has done mathematical modelling studies and found that states which saw a massive second wave may not see increasing number of cases.

from Economic Times https://bit.ly/3lHvUCm
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