Nagpur: State Government bringing back the level 3 restrictions in all districts of Maharashtra has made people restless.
Many of them are anticipating third wave, new peak and complete lockdown once again.
However, Covid task force is not seeing anything like that so far.
Members of state Covid task force told TOI that present restrictions are proactive step to control spread unless and until we come to know details about the behavior; infectivity and the immune evasion characteristics of the delta+ variant.
Experts who have been following the delta+ related development, have told TOI that the variant is not as infective and fatal as its predator and imposing further restrictions will add into unnecessary public panic.
Doctors said that there is zero evidence that this lineage is more virulant than original one.
“Delta+ differs from deadly delta variant in K417N mutation which also present in beta variant.
This mutation sacrifices ACE2 binding efficiency for antibody immune evasion.
Hence delta+ may be less infective than delta,” said Dr Nitin Shinde, infectious disease specialist.
According to him, government authorities take decisions without thoughtful action and not following science.
Meanwhile the study conducted by the ICMR and Imperial College of London shows that the new variant is unlikely to cause a new wave unless it leads to a complete loss of immune protection from a previous infection.
Possibility of this is quite rare.
“Rapid scale-up of vaccination efforts could play an important role in mitigating these and future waves,” the study added.
As far as vaccine data is concerned, all vaccines are effective against all — alpha, beta, gama and delta — variants.
As far as the delta+ is concerned, the data is awaited.
But, experts claim that vaccines will be effective.
“All vaccines are effective against delta.
Covaxin has 3 fold reduction in titres, Covishield has 2 fold reduction, mRNA vaccines have 7 fold reduction.
As far as delta+, the data is coming soon but likely to be effective,” said Dr Shinde.
Restrictions for short term: Covid task force
