Set deadlines with stringent executions on a faster pace to contain severity of the pandemic

India will likely witness a third COVID wave in near future, the estimated time is not yet predicted by the experts. COVID-19 is by far one of the most important health issues that India is facing at the moment, as it has collapsed the overall health and medical infrastructure throughout the country. Over 4 lakhs of active cases were reported across the country in the last 24 hours. The cumulative death toll has reached to nearly 23 lakh mark, which is highly disturbing.
 
How the virus is transforming?

Through its tenacity, the virus, ‘SARS-CoV-2’ is changing its basic nature and forming itself into a more lethal variant through the process of mutation. Now, these new mutations are bringing in changes to the spike protein giving the virus a better fit to the environment every time when it is being suppressed with the use of drugs or because of the selective pressure caused by vaccines. Most of the RNA viruses undergo several mutations but not all of those mutants are fatal. Only few are.

The coding sequence of the spike protein of the original virus at E484Q & L452R led to form this newly-variant B.1.617, which is highly transmissible and infectious than the previous one.

How many such waves are expected?

Amid the crisis, many experts have started contemplating over resurfacing of a third wave in near future and have urged the central and state-based governments to be prepared and carry out all the necessary interventions needed to curb the menace caused by the new variants. So, how many waves India and the world expect to observe before the final dying down of the virus? The answer is- it is difficult to predict and there is no valid reply to date. Experts believe that mutation characteristics of the virus will ascertain the future waves and so, we will have to learn to live with the virus and its time-to-time newly-altered variants for a very long time.
 
What are the active Interventions needed?

India with its highly diverse demography needs a super-active strategy to curb the gravity of the pandemic and its destructive waves.

a) Making people aware more about the severity of the pandemic and how important it is to follow the safety measures is a challenging task that needs to be done at all levels as people keep forgetting what is required all the time. Group chats that are sending false and invalid information must be checked immediately. It’s the duty of every citizen to understand the responsibility towards our society and for the country.

b) Government advisories should be executed under sensible workforce. The malpractitioners must be severely punished to avoid any delay in the execution of obligatory fixings.

c) Speeding up vaccinations to a larger scale seems the best measure our country can stick to. Since January, almost 2.2 percent of the entire Indian population are fully vaccinated now whereas 291 million individuals (3.7 percent) have been fully vaccinated worldwide. Indian PM Narendra Modi has set a goal of vaccinating approximately 300 million people by the end of August 2021.

 Other follow ups to keep in mind are:

 
-Age-wise scaling of COVID jab (primarily to 60 above; then 46-60; followed by 18 to 44; lastly age group between 5-17). Specialists believe that children up to the age of five are less affected by this virus.

-Giving primary importance to patients having chronic ailments or having co-morbid body conditions.

-Dysfunction favouritism in acquiring medical benefits and other health requirements, treating everyone as equal.
 
d) Receiving assistance from developed nations and big organisations across the world (like ICRC) to intensify vaccination to mostly interior and remote areas of the country.

e) Weekly sanitisation of hospital wards, societies, public spaces and community centres would definitely add a score in suppressing the virulency of the pandemic.

Other possible measures that we need to give impetus is to reduce mismanagement at all tiers:

f)  Crowdsourced funding must be judiciously used for the purpose it has been genuinely raised.  

g)  Fake funding raised in the name of COVID must be strictly checked by the authorities.

h)  Hoarding of vital medical supplies and other essentials must be forbidden.

i)   Social gatherings should be minimised to contain the severity of the disease. 

j)  Verified COVID-19 based information must be channelised at one platform to reduce jamming and chaos among the people during emergencies.

k)  Stringent actions should be taken against spam apps and sites spreading misinformation and leads related to pandemic or taking advantage of the situations through deceiving acts. Most of the cases were reported when near and dear ones of the affected were misled through unverified calls and a big amount of money was extracted by the malefactors.

Conclusion

The severity of COVID-19 will remain for some more time as scientists and experts are still trying to find the anatomy of the disease and its newly-formed variants. The duty lies on all of us to confront the acuteness of the virus and its forms by taking all the asked measures and following all the guidelines as advised by the doctors and authorities. We have to be in this together to die down the disease to let our planet COVID free.

#SecondCOVIDWave #SARSCOV02NewVariant  #MutantRNA

#StringentGovtActions  #COVIDPandemic  #COVIDFatality&Recovery 

By- Rashmi Singh

Image Source- Creative Commons

Data Source- JHU CSSE COVID-19 data