It’s not over yet. Yes, the pandemic is not over yet. While we wait for the third wave, WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan says we may be soon entering the epidemic stage. What does this mean to us?
If you have seen the Covid-19 data recently, you must have noticed a decline in cases and deaths. But, does this mean we are safe, or it’s over. As many festivals are lined up ahead, things may change drastically.
So, as the WHO scientist says, India might be entering the endemic stage of Covid-19. And we need to figure out how we are going to cope up with the virus further.
But, what is endemic? It is when people learn to live with the virus.
According to the United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an endemic is the “constant presence and/or usual prevalence of a disease or infectious agent in a population within a geographic area”.
Furthermore, we are also hopeful as the WHO scientist says, “We may be entering some kind of stage of endemicity where there is low-level transmission or moderate level transmission going on but, we are not seeing the kinds of exponential growth and peaks that we saw a few months ago.”
With a diverse population and immunity status in India, ups and down in cases will remain constant. But we need to be conscious enough, “Just like the Delta variant came upon us, we need to ensure that we are not caught by surprise by another variant.”
As we hear, the third wave could hit India between September or October, to which she said.
It will be impossible to predict when, where the third wave will be upon us and if at all a third wave will come. However, you can make an educated guess on some of the variables that have an impact on transmission.
As many of us worry about how the coming wave will make children sicker. However, we don’t need to panic but stay prepared for it.
Lastly, Covid-19 vaccines will help us get back to normal and, she hopes the world could reach this stage in a year and a half. i.e. by the end of 2022.