PATNA: The severity of the third wave of Covid-19, which is expected to hit the state sooner or later, will depend on the rate of the ongoing vaccination drive.
The sooner the people are inoculated with both the dosages, the less severe the impact of the third wave will be, say experts.
The ex-president of the state unit of Indian Medical Association (IMA), Dr Bimal Kumar Karak, believes that the third wave is likely to hit the state in September or even before that and will be as severe as the second one.
“Vaccination can be of some help in reducing the impact only when 70% of the state’s population gets vaccinated within the next couple of months, which seems almost impossible,” Karak said, adding that so far, only a small percentage of people in the state have been vaccinated with both the doses.
Joint director of Indira Gandhi Institute of Cardiology (IGIC), Dr A K Ashu, observes that the severity of the third wave will depend on the behaviour of the Delta+ strain of the virus, which has been changed by the government of India from ‘variant of interest’ to ‘variant of concern’.
“This variant of the virus is relatively resistant even to the vaccines which are being used for inoculating the people of the country,” Ashu said.
He further stated that the pace of ongoing vaccination drive is quite slow as it is difficult to get such a huge population with diverse cultural backgrounds and mindsets inoculated.
“Moreover, inoculation of people below 18 years of age is yet to begin,” he added.
Paediatrician Dr Arun Shah claims that the vaccines available in the country are still effective against Delta variants though on a lesser scale.
He hopes that at the present moment close to 25% of the population shall have the second dose of the vaccine before the onset of the next wave.
“A big chunk of the population in our state has already got infected with the virus, ranging from asymptomatic to severe and critical cases.
Those who have survived are likely to retain adaptive immunity to counter the infection during the third wave,” he says.
Dr Shah asserts that the third wave will not be as deadly as the second wave unless the mutant virus with more transmissibility and virulence escapes the immunity induced by vaccination and natural infection which is least likely to happen.
“However, there is an urgent need of active surveillance to determine genome sequencing of at least 3% of positive samples to know about any mutant variant and ensure effective intervention,” he said.
Aryabhatta Knowledge University’s health and medicine faculty dean and former superintendent of PMCH Dr Rajiv Ranjan Prasad said, the third wave is unlikely to be more severe as expected.
He also ridiculed the idea that it would affect mostly children.
“Despite the lack of vaccination in children, their seropositivity has been found to be comparable to that of adults.
Moreover, children are supposed to be relatively resistant to severe infections due to paucity of ACE 2 receptors and robust innate immunity and their better ability to regenerate alveolar endothelium,” Dr Prasad said.
Nalanda Medical College Hospital’s medicine department head Dr Satish Kumar also feels that if the people are not inoculated with both the doses of vaccines and if they do not strictly adhere to Covid protocols, the third wave would certainly affect them severely.
“People have become careless and violate the norms after the lockdown is lifted.
Frontline workers are always vulnerable if they are not inoculated with both the doses,” Kumar said.