New Delhi: There is a rapid increase in the number of corona cases in many states and union territories. At the same time, the top scientist believes that even after the increase in Covid-19 cases in India, the fourth wave will not come. Former Chief Scientist of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Dr. R. Gangakhedkar said that the Koreana variant found in India is a sub-lineage of Omicron, but no new variant has been found in the country so far. As of now, there is no chance of a fourth wave in the country. “I don’t think it is in any way a possibility of a fourth wave,” he said. We have to understand one thing that BA.2 variant is going on all over the world, which is infecting people every day.
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He told that the second issue is that we have given permission to open the schools and at the same time the college students are now moving forward. The result is now that they are out in the open, they are getting infected and the clusters of those infections can be large, mainly because of social networks.
According to Dr. R. Gangakhedkar, discontinuing the use of masks is also increasing the cases. It is also true that some of us still misunderstood the mandatory use of masks, which has been withdrawn. Some of us may be like this. Assuming that there is no fear of getting an infection, so I can move freely. In such a situation, people have stopped using masks. So those people also get infected if they come in contact with someone who is now infected.
He cautioned against removing the mask and said that so essentially this kind of reaction when you relax the lockdown then the chances of corona coming up and we can see a small surge of the Covid-19. He also said that the transition from Omicron would last for six to nine months. The recombinant variant is an accident, so the fourth wave will not come.
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He said that the last thing that we have to remember is when we talk about these new variants which are BA.4, BA.5 coming from South Africa. The recombinant variants that are coming will prove to be two factors, they all belong to the Omicron family. So whatever protection natural infection has given us is likely to last for a long time. This could be around six to nine months. It is also important to remember that the recombinant variety, overall, does not survive long enough to spread infection because recombinant events are an accident. This is not a natural evolution of the virus, so we don’t need to worry too much about the fourth wave.
Since the beginning of April, the fresh coronavirus cases in the country have been rising every day. However, on Monday, the country registered a jump of nearly 90% with 2,183 cases in one day.
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