New Delhi: As India reports more than 20 million cases of the COVID-19 virus during the pandemic, a top scientific adviser of the government on Wednesday said that the country will see a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic if the virus continues to evolve further.
In a press briefing by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, officials said that the long COVID wave of such ferocity that the country was experiencing currently was not predicted.
The government official warned that the COVID-19 vaccines will need to be updated to deal with the new strains that have sped up the contagion in the country, overwhelming hospitals and killing thousands of people.
K Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Centre, said that a phase three is inevitable, given the higher levels of circulating virus but it is not clear on what time scale this phase three will occur.
Read more"Variants are transmitted same as original strain. It doesn't have the properties of new kinds of transmission. It infects humans in a manner that makes it more transmissible as it gains entry, makes more copies, and goes on, same as the original," he said.
The government said that 24 states and UTs have shown more than 15% Covid-19 positivity rate. Nearly 3,780 people died of COVID in India in the last 24 hours, the highest in a day so far, pushing the total fatalities to 2,26,188.
In the last 24 hours, India reported over 3.82 lakh new cases of the novel coronavirus taking the total tally of cases in the country to hot over 2.06 crores. India has also witnessed the highest single-day spike in the cases of COVID-induced fatalities amounting to 3,780, taking the total death toll to 2,26,188. The active COVID-19 cases in India now amount to over 34.94 lakhs. The massive surge in the cases of this deadly infectious disease continues to exert tremendous pressure on the healthcare infrastructure of the country.
Read moreThere are reports of a new mutation of the novel coronavirus, called the N440K variant or the AP variant, in reference to the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh where the virus was first traced. Reports say that this new mutant variant has already spread beyond the state of Andhra Pradesh. It has been found in 20 to 30% of the samples tested in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana.
Here are some points of the COVID-19 story:
• Dr K Vijay Raghavan said at a government, said, "Phase 3 (third wave) is inevitable, given the high levels at which this virus is circulating. But it is not clear at what time scale this Phase 3 will occur."
• Vaccines will need to be updated to tackle the new strains that are spreading the contagion fast, adding that the current surge in infections seems to be because of the Indian "double mutant" coronavirus and the spread of the UK variant has slowed.
• NITI Aayog member and chief of the national expert group on vaccines VK Paul said, "If anything more is required those options are always being discussed. There's already a guideline to states to impose restrictions to suppress chain of transmission."
• India accounted for nearly half the cases reported worldwide last week, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, as COVID-19 deaths in the nation rose by a record 3,780 during the past 24 hours.
• Hospitals are struggling to get beds and oxygen as they desperately battle the deadly surge in infections, while morgues and crematoriums struggle to deal with a seemingly unstoppable flow of bodies. Many people have died in ambulances and car parks waiting for a bed or oxygen.
