By Sushil Kutty
What about the Indian? Should he display similar behaviour? The answer to that is what’s good for the American and the Englishman should be good for the Indian, too. UK cases started dropping after the highs of June and July. This has raised hopes in the US, and it should also in India.
The delta variant will gallop this month, say US scientists. The prognosis is for the US. But how much it will peak will depend on “human behaviour”. And America has humans of various variants. From the Texas variant to the Florida variant. And landlocked human behaviour isn’t the same as sea-facing human behaviour. That said, human behaviour, whether sea-facing or landlocked, is highly “unpredictable”.
So, August will test the United States. It’s currently averaging 85,866 cases per day. The last high was on Valentine’s Day. Last summer’s peak was 67,000. The “winter highpoint” was 260,000. An August jump is “really hard to predict, and really hard to control.” It’s hard to predict because “it is in our control to change the trajectory” and everybody has to be careful and vigilant, and look out for each other.
What about the Indian? Should he display similar behaviour? The answer to that is what’s good for the American and the Englishman should be good for the Indian, too. UK cases started dropping after the highs of June and July. This has raised hopes in the US, and it should also in India. Indian cases these days are in the range of 40,000. August 3 it was 40,710, thanks largely to Kerala, where goats were allegedly taking revenge and the political opponents of CM Pinarayi Vijayan were beefed up for all we know.
The delta variant, which is India’s contribution to the pandemic, will go hyper in India also this month. But watch Indian “human behaviour” and you get the distinct feeling people are in the Tokyo Olympics mood. Imagine if India was winning Gold everyday. The celebrations would have rocked the country. People jowl to jowl, hitting it out at every public venue. Just one Silver and we couldn’t hold ourselves back! Everyone from the Prime Minister down to the peon was celebrating like lunatics!
Did anyone see masks? Social distancing? This, when we’re told that “India is witnessing the beginning of a third wave”! And unlike in the US, it isn’t the “unpredictability of human behaviour” which is a bother to us. We are scared the third wave would be a replica of the 2nd wave. Three factors will determine how acute the 3rd wave will be, say experts. 1) Pace of vaccinations. 2) Regional and demographic variations in vaccination. 3) Antibodies in the population.
The Opposition says the pace of vaccinations is the Modi Government’s Achilles Heel. The Co-WIN dashboard says some 40 percent of India’s adult population – 375 out of 940 million – has got one dose as of August 3. The two doses percentage is only 11%. Primarily because the second dose interregnum has been set longer. Most people who have had the first dose haven’t so far “qualified” for the second dose! Crazy, but that’s how things stand.
The point is more people would be eligible for the second dose soon, and then will begin the clamour for vaccinations. More than half of the adult populations of the US and the UK have been vaccinated and yet Covid cases haven’t fallen in those countries. This, experts say, is because of the delta variant. For a short period there was talk of a ‘delta-plus variant’, but delta-plus got devoured somewhere along the way. Now people speak only of “delta”, not forgetting to add “deadly” to it.
True, vaccinations have brought down deaths. More in the largely vaccinated West, and less in poorly vaccinated Asian and African countries. The problem for India is that the pace of vaccinations differs from state to state. Ask a poorly vaccinated state ‘why?’ and the answer is a clipped “shortage of vaccines”. Reports in the media come armed with a picture of a cardboard “No Vaccines”. There’s no use fighting a cardboard that’s already hanging, and playing dead!
The threat of “community transmission” also remains pretty grim, and vaccine protection against community transmission isn’t all that comforting. The disparity in vaccination coverage from state to state depended on the difference in population share that received at least one dose of the vaccine. Himachal Pradesh had a high percentage of 73 compared to 30 percent for Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Kerala, which accounted for half the number of cases post-Bakraid, vaccinated more than 55 percent!
As for the presence of antibodies in the population, India might be in a happier position compared to the United States and the UK. The ICMR says a June-July sero-prevalence survey showed a big spike in the presence of antibodies — 24 percent in December-January to 67.6 percent in June-July. Again, Kerala has the lowest presence of antibodies, and the most number of new infections, proof that high antibody states are better protected against a possible new Covid wave. At the end of the day, however, it’ll be “human behaviour” which will determine the infection level, and the death count. (IPA Service)