Corona control strategy

 The kind of Corona situation which we saw in Europe and Africa during the first wave is witnessed in India now.

It is highly disturbing to see patients being treated in ambulances due to a lack of beds in hospitals. It speaks about the speed of covid surge and the inadequacy of medical infrastructure. Queues in burning ghats and crematoriums present a distressing scene.

Causes of surge: The second wave surge is the result of improper conduct of people due to ignorance, religious bigotry and poverty. People are not following the Corona guidelines viz. masking, social distancing and hand hygiene thereby facilitating the spread in the community as they do not take the advice in the media seriously.

Vaccination: Vaccination is given to protect the individual as well as to raise the herd immunity in the community. When herd immunity level is raised to a certain level, say 80-90%, the unvaccinated remaining susceptible population may be protected from the infection. This is normally the case in all other infectious causes. But in corona even vaccinated individuals are found to harbour the virus and therefore can be spreaders. The immunity in vaccinated individuals is also not strong enough to prevent a second attack. Therefore what we have to understand is the fact that vaccination against corona is not able to prevent the disease in the individuals and also do not prevent the spread to others. This being the case spending much time and money on vaccination is of little consequence in preventing the spread.

Vaccination can go on but not necessarily on an emergency basis. It is pertinent to note here that vaccination was approved for emergency use even before the completion of vaccine trials.

So it can be understood that the main effort should be bestowed for prevention of spread by strict isolation and quarantine. It does not appear that governments are giving adequate attention to this aspect. Governments are allowing huge congregations of religious, political and many other activities.

Therefore given he kind of people’s behaviour and epidemiology of the virus the immediate task before the governments are to stop the spread. This can be achieved only by complete lockdown at least for a  month, the maximum incubation period being some two weeks or so. The lockdown should be implemented by the state governments.  who will have a better idea about the epidemic in their area? The Union govt. should extend all the help in respect of procurement of drugs and vaccines if necessary, transport and distribution to states.

The only scientific way to end this spell of corona surge is to enforce lockdown immediately with an iron hand. During the lockdown, basic necessities should be provided free for the poor at their doorsteps and for the rich at a cost price. During the first wave, the government did not prepare well for the eventuality and simply declared the lockdown as a result of which people underwent untold sufferings.