New Delhi:
The third wave of COVID is likely to hit the country by the end of August and is likely not to be as intense as the second wave, said Dr Samiran Panda, head of epidemiology and infectious diseases at the Indian Council of Medical Research. Told NDTV.
“There will be a nationwide third wave, but that doesn’t mean it will be as high or as intense as the second wave,” Panda told NDTV in an exclusive interview.
He said that four things can lead to the third wave. The first of these is an instance where immunity has been achieved due to the first and second wave. “If that goes down, it could lead to a third wave,” he said.
Secondly, there may be a variant that can bypass the acquired immunity. Third – the new variant may not be able to bypass immunity but can spread rapidly in the population.
Fourth – if the restrictions are lifted prematurely by the states, it could lead to a fresh surge, Dr Panda said.
Asked if the version involved could be Delta Plus, he said that both Delta and Delta Plus have swept the country and “I’m not expecting the Delta version to cause any more public health havoc”.
Earlier this week, the country’s top doctors’ body, the Indian Medical Association, said a third wave was “inevitable and imminent”, pointing out that “in many parts of the country both the government and the public are complacent and at large”. are engaged in gatherings without following the Covid protocol”.
The government has also said that people are taking predictions about a second wave as seriously as “weather predictions”.
Earlier today, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that the world is in the “early stage” of a third wave of Covid-19, driven by the delta version of the virus.
The variant, now found in more than 111 countries, first emerged in India and was behind the virus’s devastating second surge.
The WHO chief had said, “We expect this to be the major COVID-19 strain spreading across the world soon.”
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