WHO chief scientist warns against lowering guard against Covid for 6 months

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) chief scientist, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, on Friday cautioned people against lowering their guard against the coronavirus and urged them to strictly follow Covid-appropriate protocols for another six months.

Chief scientist of the World Health Organization Dr Soumya Swaminathan on Friday warned that if the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues mutating, then a new variant that could be worse than Delta can emerge.

“I know everybody is tired, everyone wants to meet their family, organise parties. But this is not the time to let down your guard. Let’s be careful for another six months. By then, if the vaccination coverage is very high, then things should definitely start improving,” she said.

The WHO chief scientist also said that there is no scientific evidence for anxiety that the third wave will target children. While speaking to ANI, Dr Swaminathan said, “The ICMR serosurvey showed that 65 per cent of children and adults have been infected and have developed antibodies. This means that children are very mildly affected by Covid, either they are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms. We should not be too worried about a third wave affecting children. There is no scientific evidence.”

Dr Swaminathan said that if the virus mutates further and get a new variant, “it could be worse than Delta variant.” The highly transmissible and more infectious Delta variant of COVID-19 has been attributed to be reason behind the second wave of COVID in the country. India reported 44,643 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, the Union Ministry of health and family welfare said on Friday. India’s active caseload currently stands at 4,14,159 which constitute 1.30 per cent of the total coronavirus cases. (ANI)

Dr Swaminathan dismissed fears that the third wave will be impacting the children most and said it is not yet time to let down the guard. Speaking to news agency ANI in Chennai, she said that 65 per cent of children and adults have developed antibodies, according to the ICMR serosurvey. This data proves that children have also been mildly affected by Covid, though their infections might have been mild. So the assumption that children will get affected the most in the third wave as they have not been affected in the first two waves has no scientific backing as it is wrong to assume that children were not affected in the first two waves. “We should not be too worried about a third wave affecting children. There is no scientific evidence,” Dr Swaminathan said.

In the meantime, India reported 44,643 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday. With these new cases, the active tally has climbed to 4,14,159 and constitutes 1.30 per cent of total cases. With 41,096 recoveries in the last 24 hours, the overall recoveries in the country have reached 3,10,15,844. The recovery rate now stands at 97.36 per cent.

A total of 4,26,754 deaths have been reported so far out of which 464 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours. Also, the weekly positivity rate, which is currently at 2.41 per cent, remained below 5 per cent. The daily positivity rate, currently at 2.72 per cent, has been less than 3 per cent for the last 11 days. The testing capacity has substantially ramped up as the country has conducted 47.65 crore tests so far.