Summary:
New Delhi: Even as India grapples with the ferocious second wave of Covid-19, the government Wednesday warned that a third wave of the pandemic was “inevitable”, although a time-frame for it could not be predicted.
“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.
We should be prepared for new waves,” K Vijay Raghavan, the principal scientific advisor to the Centre, said during a press briefing.
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New Delhi: Even as India grapples with the ferocious second wave of Covid-19, the government Wednesday warned that a third wave of the pandemic was “inevitable”, although a time-frame for it could not be predicted.
“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.
We should be prepared for new waves,” K Vijay Raghavan, the principal scientific advisor to the Centre, said during a press briefing.
On Wednesday, India reported a record 3,780 fresh Covid fatalities in the last 24 hours, taking the overall death toll to 2,26,188.
As many as 3,82,315 new coronavirus infections were also recorded at the same time.
Raghavan further pointed out that vaccines are effective against the current variants.
“New variants will arise all over the world, as well as India, but variants that increase transmission will likely plateau,” he said, adding that immune-evasive variants and those which lower or increase disease severity will arise going ahead.
“Scientists in India and all over the world are working to anticipate these kinds of variants and act against them rapidly by issuing early warnings and developing modified tools,” he said.The Health Ministry officials also said that the long Covid wave of such “ferocity” that the country was experiencing currently “was not predicted”.