Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 28: Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Director General Shekhar C Mande on Sunday warned that the COVID-19 crisis was far from being over and allowing a “third wave” by lowering our guard is fraught with grave consequences.
Also, continued collaboration across institutions was necessary to come out of the current situation as well as ward off catastrophic situations arising out of climate change and over dependence on fossil fuels which had the potential to wipe out the entire humanity, he said.
Mande was speaking on “India’s response to Covid-19 from S & T perspective” at a virtual “National Science Day Lectures,” organised by Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology here.
The expert clarified that India is nowhere near achieving herd immunity and as such people should continue to wear masks and maintain social distancing and hand hygiene to stay away from getting infected by the virus.
Cautioning the people and the scientific community against allowing “complacency to set in,” he warned that a third wave would precipitate a far more dangerous situation than the challenge the country had faced so far.
RGCB Director Chandrabhas Narayana moderated the digital lectures.
Answering questions from the scientific community, Mande expressed the hope that the Covid-19 vaccines would be effective against the coronavirus variants.
The evidence “is not very strong” that the vaccines would not work against the mutated virus.
“We would like to believe that the vaccines are effective” against the variants as the vaccines worked against the entire part of the virus while the mutation took place on a part of the virus, he explained.
The prevalence of COVID-19 cases had come down not because of herd immunity, but because of other reasons, including wearing of masks and people remaining outdoors during the winter.
The fact that the virus remained suspended in the air in closed areas and it lost its potency in open areas helped a great deal in controlling the spread during the winter, the expertsaid.
Precisely for the same reason, the disease went out of control in the West where people remained indoors during the winter, he added.
Meanwhile, India’s total number of active COVID-19 cases has reached 1,64,511, which comprises 1.48 per cent of the country’s total infections, the Union Health Ministry said on Sunday highlighting six states that have shown a surge in new cases in a span of 24 hours.
It said 86.37 per cent of the new cases are from Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. A total of 16,752 new COVID-19 cases were registered in a span of 24 hours. Maharashtra continues to report the highest daily new cases at 8,623, followed by Kerala with 3,792 cases while Punjab reported 593 fresh COVID-19 cases. (PTI)
