AIIMS Director highlights people's laxity, virus mutation behind recent COVID-19 surge

Blaming the lackadaisical attitude of people in January and February for the spike in the number of COVID-19 cases, AIl India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) Director Randeep Guleria on Friday asserted that there is a need to go back to the strategies that were being followed in the initial phase to bring down the number. 

Highlighting that the spread has resulted because of multiple factors, he went on to discuss the one he found the most pertinent. Elaborating on them he said, "When in January and February, vaccination started and cases went down, people stopped following COVID appropriate behaviour and at this time, the virus mutated and it spread more rapidly."

"At present, we are not only seeing record-breaking numbers but we are also seeing a huge strain on the healthcare system because no healthcare system will be able to manage so many patients and we will have a crisis in terms of patient management," he said. Pointing out that the doctors were overburdened, he added, "They have been working for more than a year and not just them, even the other healthcare workers." Reiterating that there is a need to keep increasing hospital beds and resources for the increasing number of patients, he said that the country needs to bounce back to the previous strategies. "There is a need to go back to all the previous strategies that we were following six-seven months ago to decrease the number of cases," he said. 

'No vaccine 100 percent efficient'

He also took the opportunity to address queries related to vaccination. Pointing out that no vaccine prevents the infection, he said, "No vaccine is 100 per cent efficient. You may get the infection but the antibodies in your body will not allow the virus to multiply and you will not have severe disease." Having said that, he made it clear that it is impossible to predict till when the second wave of COVID-19 will continue. "It all depended on how quickly and efficiently the spread of the virus is contained," he said. This comes at a time when India is going through the second wave of COVID-19, reporting over 2 lakh fresh cases every day. 

(CREDITS-ANI)