Dr Shaikh expressed relief that India contributed just 8,865 new cases to world figures but cautioned that it could change in the coming months. He said the third wave has been delayed in India because of the so-called “thick tail” of the prolonged second wave, which has not really come to an end yet, similar to September 2020 to February 2021 when cases had declined in India. At that time, people let their guard down and several health facilities were shut, but then the country witnessed a severe second wave beginning March.

Vaccine and variants

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“The World Health Organization (WHO) released a warning last week that Europe has become the new epicentre of the pandemic, prompting almost half of the 47 governments to consider expanding genomic surveillance and re-imposing economically unpopular lockdowns in the run-up to Christmas and stirring fresh debate over whether vaccines alone are enough to control Covid-19. The fresh wave-5 in Europe is triggered by Delta and Delta Plus variants i.e. 4.2... This is despite the fact that about 65 per cent of the adult population of the European Union have received two doses of vaccines... While the globally dominant Covid D614G variant paved the way for universal vaccine candidates, the sudden accumulation of mutations in new ‘variants of concern’, such as the Delta (having six-eight mutations) and Delta Plus (having over 36 mutations) have led to reduced neutralisation by naturally or vaccine-elicited antibodies,” said Dr Subhash Hira, professor of Global Health at the University of Washington-Seattle, and invited member to several WHO-Geneva’s Covid review fora.

Giving an instance, Dr Hira said, “A highly placed medical doctor in Belgium was struck with Covid-19 despite being fully vaccinated, but was unable to get fabipiravir or molnupiravir after an early test report. By comparison, the health services in India are able to dispense antiviral medicines up to district and block levels. In the absence of convincing newer steps of control, most EU countries are deploying extra vaccine shots to the elderly and those with weakened immune systems; but expanding vaccination to third dose could become a tempting action to avoid lockdowns.”

“Vaccines alone are not the silver bullet to defeat the pandemic in the long term. The world is watching Israel and India as examples of good practice: in addition to inoculations, it has reinforced mask wearing and introduced vaccine passports after cases spiked a few months ago.”

Lull before the storm

“Currently, we are observing a huge increase in the number of Covid cases in Europe and most of the patients are fully vaccinated. In India, Covid is seemingly under control but this could be silence before a storm. If Covid can infect fully vaccinated people in Europe then it can also infect fully vaccinated people in India,” said Dr Santosh Bansode, head of the department, Emergency Medicine, Wockhardt hospitals. 

“Now since we are observing what’s happening in western countries, this is the right time for us to take adequate precautions and save ourselves from facing a third wave. We must follow protocols while in public places. Everything is getting unlocked now and we don’t want to see lockdowns again. If we don’t do our best today, we might be in trouble soon,” he concluded.

Dr Ketan Vagholkar, professor of surgery at DY Patil Medical College, said “There is a lot of speculation about the emergence of the third wave in our country. Herd immunity seems to have developed due to a large portion of the population being vaccinated as well as having recovered from the infection. Continuing vaccination along with meticulous practise of Covid-appropriate behaviour may help avert the third wave.”