The pandemic Covid-19 which has gripped nations across the world since early 2020 refuses to be tamed into submission with new emerging deadly variants with faster speed of transmissibility which pose serious concerns for the governments, scientists, experts, health care workers who are battling it out on several fronts.
Since the second wave of the pandemic peaked in India in April-May with four lakh plus daily cases, the graph showed declining trend but now after nearly three months of steady decline, daily Covid-19 infections in India are on the rise again. The main reason behind the slow upward trend is the high volume of daily cases in states like Kerala where the outbreak continues to increase rapidly.
Two more states - Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, both hilly northern states - have witnessed their weekly average of daily infections rise by over 75 per cent. It is not India alone, new infections of Covid-19 have again begun to see a surge across the world, with a number of countries reporting a record number of new infections.
Experts say the latest surge is due to the spread of Delta variant which remains highly contagious.. the Delta variant was first identified in India last year and is likely to remain the dominant strain of the virus over the coming months, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned. In the beginning of this month, the Delta variant had spread its tentacles to 132 countries and territories and caused a substantial rise in infections in many of these countries.
While Covid-19 cases are on the rise in the vaccinated West, deaths have remained low. The concern is serious in Asia and Africa where countries have faced the brunt of the Delta variant. Access to vaccines in these countries has remained difficult as compared to the West and the countries have been able to vaccinate very small proportion of their populations.
For example, Bangladesh has fully vaccinated only 2.6 per cent of its residents, the percentage is slightly better at 7.6 in Indonesia. The greater concern for Asia and Africa regions is of rising deaths rather than the climbing rate of daily cases. In India, the government estimates the adult population to be around 940 million and it expects to vaccinate them by the year-end.
The latest concern for the government in India is the increase in the reproduction number of the Covid-19 outbreak in eight States. India's reproductive number, or `R', an indicator of how fast the Covid-19 pandemic is spreading, is more than one in eight states. An R-value above one means more than one person is being infected, on an average, by an already-infected person, and that is the main reason behind the surge in cases.
According to senior Health Ministry officials, the high R-number means the case trajectory is increasing and it needs to be controlled. U.S., Canada, Australia and India have 1.2 R number on an average. India's overall weekly positivity rate has fallen significantly to less than 2 per cent in the week ending on August 2. Kerala alone accounts for nearly 40 per cent of daily new cases, whereas Kerala and Maharashtra together have 60 per cent of total active cases.
From roughly 13,000 new cases daily in the beginning of July, the numbers in Kerala crossed 20,000 cases per day by the last week and remained at this level over one week. Kerala has also fully vaccinated about 23 per cent of its adult population which is double the national average of 11 per cent, reports have pointed out.
The officials cautioned that the second wave is still not over in India. A high number of cases being reported from across the world show that the pandemic is far from over. The total number of Covid vaccine doses administered so far in India has reached 47.85 crore. In another silver lining, India's Parliament was informed that four more Indian pharma firms are expected to start vaccine production by October-November which will accelerate the inoculation drive.
For India, it is watch out time as the primary protection against Covid remains vaccination. Coming months will remain crucial for the country as low percentage of vaccinated population makes the country prone to another wave of Covid. Even the U.S. where nearly 50 per cent of the total population is vaccinated, is witnessing a rise in infections.
After seeing this overall scenario, it is imperative that the vaccination programme has to be backed strongly by Covid-19 appropriate behaviour which stops the spread of infection. Universal masking and prohibiting non-essential gatherings, crowds in markets remain unavoidable. Social messaging, awareness and enforcement by the authorities need to be intertwined and consistent. As India opens up its economy, it is but natural that it will also come with certain risks. The task at hand for the government is to reduce such risks to a minimum level.
The people waiting to party and holiday need to be put on hold and the country has to be put in place both - its vaccination programme and strategies for Covid-19 appropriate behaviour of masking, physical distancing and overall hygiene. Though lifestyle restricts may adversely affect the desire of the people to return to the normal pace of life, it remains the crying need in such crisis-ridden times not only in India but acroos the world. Only then, we will be able to control the raging pandemic.
Vinay Kumar is a New Delhi-based senior Indian journalist
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