Brace yourselves, another Covid wave is upon us

| FEBRUARY 20, 2021, 12:24 AM IST

India’s fun run with Covid 19 seems to have come to an end. With a very worrying resurgence in cases in neighbouring Maharashtra, it appears that a new and possibly undiscovered variant of the virus has emerged and should worry us all. 

Amravati and Yavatmal districts of Maharashtra, both in the rural Vidarbha have begun to witness a spike in cases that has sustained for the past few days and is a clear departure from the gradual decrease that the State witnessed since the turn of the year.

The development has rightly sparked fears that this re-emergence of the virus will bring about an even deadlier wave of the virus across the country that -- barring a few States that have been badly affected -- by and large escaped the worst effects of the pandemic.

The warning signs that India could yet witness a deadlier variant have always been there with experts warning that in the natural course of the virus spread, mutations are bound to take place meaning that a more dangerous variant was bound to emerge sooner or later. If new emerging strains of the virus could cause so much havoc in Europe, North America and several African and Asian countries there was no reason to believe that India would be any different.

That India has by and large managed to ensure a low death rate and overcome the high hospitalisations has left scientists flummoxed but is largely believed to be down to the low average age in the population rather than any achievements of the governments. The best one can hope for is that the vaccines that are being currently rolled out remain effective against the new and emerging strains as well as provide lasting immunity against the disease.

For this the government needs to speed up the pace of the vaccine roll out to ensure that as much of the population is covered as quickly as possible rather than waiting for things to get worse and then acting in panic.

It is imperative at this stage that the governments treat this new re-emergence with all the seriousness it deserves failing which the country stares at yet another months long battle against the virus not unlike the one we have overcome across the months of June to November last year with the possibility that this could be worse than last year. Early indications are that this virus is bringing with it an early onset of pneumonia -- a sign that the state’s health infrastructure could once again be put under stress.

The Goa government doesn’t seem to have learnt any lessons from the previous wave of the pandemic with the state failing to augment the State’s bed capacity in anticipation of yet another wave leaving the State vulnerable to yet another round of bed shortages as was seen in August and October last year.

Rather than spout rhetoric about being prepared, it is imperative that the government ensures that it is actually prepared to treat a high load of patients, should what is feared indeed materialise. Being caught unawares once is understandable -- being caught twice is sheer stupidity.


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