Follow COVID appropriate behaviour during festive season to avoid 3rd wave: NTAGI chairman

People must follow COVID appropriate behaviour during the festive period to avoid the emergence of a third wave of the virus, said Chairman of India's COVID-19 Working Group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI). He said that a new mutation could be the reason behind the next wave.

He said that the daily cases already fall in the 30,000 - 45000 band for the past several weeks. Even though most of the cases are highly concentrated in some select regions in the country, the high caseload could easily spread to other states. Regions like Kerala, many North Eastern States, districts of Maharashtra and some other southern states must strictly follow COVID-19 protocols to reduce their caseload. He further said that the genomic analysis of SARS-COV-2 viruses circulating during June, July and August has not shown a new variant.

According to the serosurvey conducted during July, he said that the current cases are being reported from people who are not yet vaccinated and continue to be vulnerable since the last phase of the second wave. As per the serosurvey, 66% to 70% of people were found to be infected; therefore, more than 30% of people are still in danger of being infected, and since only less than 12% of the population is fully vaccinated, the potential harm caused by the virus could be as bad as the second wave. Therefore, the Chairman says that following COVID appropriate behaviours is essential and critical, especially with the coming festive season.

How effective are vaccines to contain spread? 

While talking about the effectiveness of the vaccines, he says that the various values cited by the media are usually referred to the effectiveness against symptomatic disease. For most vaccines, it is between 60-90%. He said, “Most of the vaccines are not adequately effective in preventing COVID infection and therefore, it is repeatedly emphasized that even after vaccination, the person can spread COVID infection and need for maintaining COVID appropriate behaviour.”

He said that the most crucial advantage of getting vaccinated is the ability of the COVID-19 vaccines to prevent severe disease, need for hospitalization and death. He said, “All the vaccines currently available in India and elsewhere are over 90-95% effective for protecting the beneficiary from severe disease and death. This is true for all the variants, including the delta virus. Most of the infection occurring in India today is due to Delta virus.”

(With inputs from PIB release)

Image Credit: PTI