The nation is back to square one, it would appear, in terms of the Covid19 pandemic. Major cities and several states are under curfew-like situations at night and life has come to a halt in some sectors like education. The Third Wave is unfolding. With the Delta variant of the Chinese-induced virus having had a run, Omicron that is steadily spreading in cities and its tally now at around 2000, a fresh task is at hand for the health care sector that had only heaved a sigh of relief for the past couple of months. Hints are that the symptoms would be mild but the General OPs will see a surge of people. Expert view is also that Omicron does not attack vital organs like lungs and there would be less of a requirement for ICU beds or more of oxygen support. This was the advice coming from the World Health Organization that studied the emerging scenario.
By all indications so far, Omicron is less harmful while its rate of spread is faster. Fatalities are few. WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan has taken exception to the penchant to declare curfews at the drop of a hat in city after city. Curfews, she said, have no scientific basis vis-à-vis checking the spread; rather, places of entertainment and the like are where the spread takes place. Air-conditioned rooms are also seen to be helping in the spread. Travel at night has no correlation to the spread of the virus other than that curfew on this count is a way of paralyzing public life. Notably, China had started with curfews when the first Covid wave erupted there and it is doing so selectively even now. But it is also taking several other effective measures to check the spread, whereas Covid guidelines like wearing masks etc are widely flouted by the people here.
A more worrisome fact today is that the saga will continue for a longer term, seriously affecting public life across the world. While WHO says this year could hopefully see an end to the Covid19’s run, fact is also that new variants are emerging and arriving here just as Indian variants have gone to other nations. Scientists in France this week identified a new variant with more mutations than Omicron. As epidemiologist Eric Feigi-Ding stated, variants might not be a worry, but ‘variants of concern’ are, like Omicron; and more such are bound to be in the pipeline. The world would now have to learn to live with situations and yet keep life ticking.
