As Covid cases rise in India, top specialists share their views with India Today TV Consulting Editor Rajdeep Sardesai on how graver the second wave could be and recommend possible solutions. An oxygen crisis, a beds and drugs shortage, and overflowing crematoriums and burial grounds are more likely to happen soon as per his opinion. Let’s see some extracts from his show News Today at 9.
He says that it’s really hard to watch these reports coming from all over India. “I feel a year of work has gone to complete waste for many of us”.
“I do think the next four weeks are going to be hard for India”. April is the cruellest month, as it is predicted of 5 lakh cases, 25,000 hospitalisations and 3-4,000 deaths every day.
The situation is profoundly disturbing and he really expects that something has to be done so that these projections are beaten by policy, public health authorities and public cooperation.
The virus doesn’t listen to state border patrols. So to assume that any mutant is restricted to Maharashtra will not be correct. The more it spreads, the more it changes.
“But what we have seen in other countries such as South Africa, the UK and the US is that there was a sharp rise in the second wave, but also a sharp fall. And the models are showing that Maharashtra is coming down at the end of April and early May. So, I’m hoping something miraculous like that happens.”
It is said that after two weeks of two doses of a vaccine it will protect you against any kind of virus, but now this spread is extensive, and many people who have taken the first dose are turning out positive.
“This is a tale that if you take a shot today, tomorrow you’re protected. Also remember, vaccines guarantee protection against severe disease and deaths and certainly not against infections. The degree of protection against infections varies from vaccine to vaccine. No vaccine gives 100 per cent protection against infections.”
The only ways that ensure protection are masking, maintaining social distancing, sanitising hands and, most importantly, avoiding crowding and going to closed spaces.
Lockdown is the ultimate step and he doesn’t think lockdown is the solution, but governments may have to force it. “I would like to go to work, come back and lock myself in.” Locking in is a voluntary activity that people can take up.
The curve will come down only when it reaches its peak. Behaviour change is the most effective vaccine. The vaccines that we’re administering will protect us against the third wave. Many countries have had the third wave.
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