Editorial: Fresh wave looms large

With several parts of the world witnessing a renewed surge in Covid infections, it is time for India to be vigilant without pushing the panic button. There is a need for greater disease surveillance and genomic sequencing to identify the new variants of the coronavirus and ramping up health infrastructure to handle exigencies. Testing, tracking, […]

With several parts of the world witnessing a renewed surge in Covid infections, it is time for India to be vigilant without pushing the panic button. There is a need for greater disease surveillance and genomic sequencing to identify the new variants of the coronavirus and ramping up health infrastructure to handle exigencies. Testing, tracking, treating, expanding vaccination coverage and adhering to the Covid-appropriate social behaviour should form the key components of the country’s Covid strategy. While India has done reasonably well in terms of vaccination drive, promoting public awareness about preventive measures and improving hospital facilities and services, there should be no room for complacency as countries with far better infrastructure and resources are now being hit by a fresh wave of Covid-19 infections. In countries like South Korea, the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia, the new wave has taken shape in a matter of weeks after the Omicron wave of December-January appeared to abate. This is in sharp contrast to the gap of several months between earlier waves. The World Health Organization (WHO) has sounded alarm bells due to the resurgence in cases. The UN body has asked countries to remain vigilant. After more than a month of decline, Covid cases started to increase around the world last week. Over 30 million people have gone under lockdown in China and morgues have gone out of space in Hong Kong while South Korea is grappling with a massive surge in fresh cases.

The current wave of infections is driven largely by Omicron’s sub-variant BA.2, which is found to be transmitting fast. According to WHO, new infections have jumped 8% globally compared with the previous week, with 11 million new cases and over 43,000 new deaths reported from March 7 to 13. Though India’s Covid graph has been consistently on the decline for now with the daily fresh cases hovering around 2,500 and a weekly positivity rate of 0.4%, there is, however, no reason to drop the guard. The country’s cumulative vaccination coverage has exceeded 180.97 crore with nearly 89.3% of people above the age of 12 having received at least one shot. The Centre’s decision to remove the “comorbidity” precondition for the 60-plus age group to avail precaution doses is welcome. Allowing those over 45 and any adult with comorbidities to avail booster doses is the next logical step. Many adults received second doses over six months ago. Their waning immunity is an uncomfortable prospect amid massive infection surges abroad and the resumption of normal international air travel operations from March 27. Though India has not reported any infections caused by the BA.2 strain so far, experts have called for better surveillance mechanisms and genome sequencing. All samples that return Covid positive results must be sent for genome sequencing.

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