Health machinery now equipped to manage COVID, says virology expert

The COVID third wave, dominated by Omicron variant of the coronavirus, has just subsided but there are already talks of a fourth wave which, if mathematical models are to be believed, would hit anytime between July and September.

Will the fourth wave happen? How strong will it be? Can previous infections and vaccines provide us protection? Should we be worried about our unvaccinated children spreading the infection?

Trusting mathematical models

In an interview to Business Standard, virologist Gagandeep Kang noted that mathematical models are based on historical records. Influenza, for instance, has been infecting humans for more than 100 years. Any new strain of influenza is meticulously studied for developing appropriate treatment or prevention. One cannot say that the coronavirus has such a long historical record for the scientists to come up with an accurate mathematical model for predicting when the next wave would come and how strong it would be, said Kang.

Thus, one could surely get long-range predictions in judging the next COVID wave wrong for the sheer lack of data and ignorance about the behavior pattern of the virus. At best, it is possible that researchers may be able to tell with accuracy the case count over the next month or so, she told BS.

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Definitely, new Sars-CoV-2 strains will emerge; there is still time for us to overcome the disease completely. What is difficult to judge though is when and where the new strain will come from and which part of the world will suffer the most, said Kang. However, one thing is for sure: the new variant needs to be stronger in terms of its ability to seriously infect a large section of the population. Primarily, because a large majority of humans is already vaccinated and a larger category is infected.

What to do if fourth wave comes?

Tracing each and every patient may not be very feasible. With so many variants already circulating, separating each patient would not serve any greater purpose. Finally, keeping a count of all COVID positive patients would also be unhelpful, noted Kang.

She added that efforts of the future should be aimed at spotting critical patients and keeping track of new symptoms to know the challenges that lie ahead.

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Our health machinery is now equipped to manage the disease and its fallout and we need not divert all our resources into tracing each and every patient of the coronavirus. The pandemic has hit our businesses hard, affected education and resulted in job losses, said Kang. Most of our energies should be focused on ensuring complete lockdowns do not happen again.

The health machinery should take up strict surveillance, spotting new symptoms and find out clusters of cases to prevent the disease from spreading rapidly and uncontrollably.

Is herd immunity the answer to future waves?

It is wrongly believed that achieving herd immunity means achieving complete control over the COVID infection, Kang told BS. It will never happen. The virus has been there and will be there, circulating among the masses. It will become a matter of concern only if a particular strain becomes dominant and starts making people seriously ill.

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A more practical way to look at herd immunity will be to say that our population has enough protection (mainly due to previous infection and vaccination) that the disease may not take a serious form.

Take, for example, the third wave led by Omicron variant. When compared with the previous wave, dominated by the Delta strain, the third wave was easy to handle, mainly because a lot of patients had already gone through the infection in greater or lesser proportions. No vaccine or previous history of infection guarantees that people will not fall sick again, said Kang in the interview.

Do children spread the infection fast?

More than a third of children infected by the disease did not fall seriously ill during COVID. That’s because they had a good immunity and were able to fight off the infection with ease. Therefore, the possibility of children carrying the infection far and wide is minimal, observed Kang.

While vaccinating children is not a bad idea, one needs to reason whether it is really required, especially without assessing what’s best for our young population. There should be many more vaccines to choose from instead of shortlisting one from the 2-3 jabs available in India at present, she told BS.