Coronavirus pandemic may continue till 2021: AIIMS Chief Randeep Guleria

Coronavirus pandemic is expected to spillover to 2021 seeing the rise in the number of cases on a daily basis, said Dr Randeep Guleria, Director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi.

The number of cases may rise for a few more months before the curve begins to flatten, said Guleria who is a key member of the central government's special taskforce on COVID-19.

"We can't say that the pandemic will not spillover to 2021 but what we can say is that the curve will be flatter instead of rising very steeply. We should be able to say the pandemic is ending early next year," Guleria said.

On the rising number of cases, Guleria said that the infection has now spread across India and has reached smaller cities and rural areas, which is why the numbers have increased.

However, it is on expected lines, he added. He also said that a second wave can be seen in certain parts of the country amid resurgence of cases.

Guleria also said that many people have now gone into the stage of coronavirus behaviour fatigue.

Many people who were very strict in terms of complying with the Covid safety measures in the initial phases, now seem to hold the view that enough is enough," he added.

There are many in urban centres such as Delhi who are not wearing masks, gathering in crowds. Even the traffic jams are back to the pre-corona days. "All this ends up pushing our numbers," Guleria noted.

There are multiple factors for this. One of them is our testing capacity has been boosted tremendously. We are now conducting more than a million tests every day. In areas where we test more, we will definitely pick up more cases.

With 40,06,162 total cases and 68,472 deaths, India is one of the worst-affected countries by coronavirus. The five states — Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh — accounted for over 62 per cent of the active cases in the country.

On being asked when COVID-19 vaccine will be developed, he said that if everything goes well, it will be ready by the end of this year.

Dr Guleria also said that there will be a rise in the number of cases for some months before the curve is flattened, adding that although we will see a large number of cases in absolute numbers, per million cases will be low.

The Delhi Metro is set to resume operations from Monday amid a reported "second wave" of Covid-19 cases in the national capital. Bars and pubs in the city will reopen from September 9.

The doctor held the view that as long as measures such as physical distancing, wearing masks and sanitising one's hands were followed, the risk of catching infection will be low. However, packed metro trains without proper measures will cause a problem.

As Delhi is set to open bars and pubs, Dr Guleria feels that patrons visiting them must be very careful and must follow proper physical distancing.