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Prof K Vijay Raghavan, the principal scientific advisor to the Centre, said it is inevitable that India will see a third wave of Covid-19. He said its timing and scale can’t be predicted thus we should prepare for new waves….

“It is not clear on what time scale this phase three will occur. We should prepare for new waves,” said K. Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Centre, at a press briefing on Wednesday.

The country is struggling to combat the second wave of coronavirus, a top official of the central government has beamed a grim warning that a third phase of the pandemic is inevitable. 

Speaking about the scale and ferocity of the second Covid-19 wave in India, Prof Raghavan said new emerging variants is one of the factors responsible for the spread of the infection. “Immunity attained can fade away and someone who has been infected once can get re-infected. Decreased immunity and careless behaviour had driven the second wave,” he said.

“A phase three is inevitable, given the higher levels of circulating virus but it is not clear on what time scale this phase three will occur. We should prepare for new waves.” Vijay Raghavan said. (ANI)

Variants are transmitted same as original strain. It doesn’t have properties of new kinds of transmission. It infects humans in a manner that makes it more transmissible as it gains entry, makes more copies & goes on, same as original

-Principal Scientific Advisor to Centre

Vaccines are effective against current variants. New variants will arise all over the world & in India too but variants that increase transmission will likely plateau. Immune evasive variants & those which lower or increase disease severity will arise going ahead

-K VijayRaghavan

He said India needs to finalize a long-term plan to manage multiple waves.

As several countries are extending or reintroducing lockdown and restrictions as a third wave of the novel coronavirus sweeps the world. “The spread of the variants is driving the increase. But so is the opening of society when it is not done in a safe and a controlled manner,” Hans Kluge, the WHO’s Europe director, said.

Countries like Germany. France, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Canada, are the top ranking countries which are rapidly affected by this third-wave.

COVID-19 is surrounded with numerous uncertainties as the pandemic is still ongoing. Although the progress made by scientists is undeniable, new properties of the virus are emerging and certain problems remain unanswered, for example the possibility of recurrent infection, the possible persistency and the capability of the virus to infect a multitude of cell types and cause complications outside of the respiratory tract and the lack of SARS-CoV-2 specific therapeutics and vaccine.