Third Covid wave inevitable, govt's principal scientific advisor issues prior warning

K Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to Centre, has said that a third COVID-19 wave is  'inevitable' and the authorities should be prepared for it. "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," K Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to Centre said on Wednesday. "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 and goes on, same as original," Raghavan added.

The massive second wave has witnessed lakhs of cases in the country on a daily basis since over a month. Thousands of Covid deaths are also being reported. The health infrastructure has come under tremendous pressure with unprecedented medical emergency. Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad are facing never-seen-before oxygen shortage. The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Wednesday said that India accounted for nearly half of the Covid-19 cases reported worldwide last week. Meanwhile, the Union Health Ministry said that around 2.4 per cent day on day growth in Covid cases has been noticed in the country."12 states have more than one lakh active cases, seven states have 50,000 to one lakh active cases and 17 states have less than 50,000 active cases. Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh have more 1.5 lakh active cases," Joint Secretary, Health, Luv Aggarwal said. India reported a record 3,780 deaths in the last 24 hours, the highest daily toll since the pandemic began. Over 900 deaths were from Maharashtra, while Delhi and Uttar Pradesh reported 338 and 351, respectively. At least 13 states are reporting more than 100 deaths a day. These include previously uncounted deaths from earlier days. The country reported 3.82 lakh cases of the novel coronavirus in the 24 hours ending 9 am Wednesday. Of these, Maharashtra recorded 51,880 cases, while Karnataka reported 44,631. Active cases are now more than 34.87 lakh.