- There is no escaping yet from the dreaded clutches of the novel coronavirus as reports of raising confirmed infection cases are emerging from some states in the country. The last two years have been disastrous and extremely challenging need no further elaboration. Despite suffocating economic travails, the precious loss of lives of near and dear ones is beyond reasoning. No family can lay claim to being shielded from the vagaries of the virus mirrors how devastating the virus menace has been in perpetrating into our day-to-day existence. Unfortunately, the recurring emergence of one or the other form of variants is posting tremendous challenges to humanity despite the invention of several vaccinations as an admirable protective shield against the virus.
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- Looking around the world will reveal that many countries are already witnessing yet another uptick in the number of cases being reported. India too appears to be seeing an uptick going by the increase in the confirmed infection rates from a few states. As reported, the small but steady uptick in Covid cases in Delhi and adjoining National Capital Region (NCR) cities in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh is a warning for the rest of the country that Covid is not over. Of course, the pandemic has been tamed to a great extent in terms of the metric that matters most now, hospitalization. Indeed, there were 59 Covid hospitalizations until last Saturday in Delhi indicating the trajectory to be somewhat similar to the third wave.
- Worryingly, the transmissibility of the virus remains intact, and this is where strategies like genomic sequencing, testing, masking, vaccination, and serosurveys remain highly relevant. The global spread of the XE subvariant, believed to be more transmissible than the parent Omicron strain, should prompt genomic sequencing of all positive samples. Despite the steady creeping up of Delhi’s positivity rate to 5%, testing hasn’t registered a proportionate upswing. Against 50,000 tests on February 1 when the test positivity rate was similarly at 5%, 9,000 tests were done on Saturday.
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- Mind you, without wider testing, the Delhi numbers are inconclusive. Other states too have drastically reduced testing over the last few weeks. Availability of home testing kits and comparatively mild Covid symptoms since the Omicron variant’s rise could explain the low demand for tests nationally but governments can offset this by random testing in public places. Further, more nationwide testing will also help understand if the NCR numbers are an anomaly. Remember, a national serosurvey is also long overdue. Its results would give greater clarity on antibody prevalence in the general population. In hindsight, the relaxation of mask mandates by Maharashtra and Delhi after the third wave ebbed appears to be premature.
- Needless, to mention vaccination drive should pick up the pace to cover all eligible beneficiaries on a war footing. Especially, the focus should be on school-going children in the age group of 12-14 years as any more deprivation of offline teachings would be hugely counterproductive. Make no mistake, citizens have entered into a stage of complacency vis-à-vis adherence to Covid appropriate behavior. Hence, the onus is on authorities to fill gaps in disease surveillance and virus suppression. Continued laxity on the matter would prove to be costlier. Let us all join hands with the authorities by exercising requisite precautions.
