The Chief Scientist of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Dr. Soumya Swaminathan has said “COVID-19 in India may be entering some kind of stage of endemicity where there is a low or moderate level of transmission going on.”
Endemic is a disease or a condition, regularly found and very common among a particular group or in a particular area. The WHO chief scientist said that India has such a wide population and immunity differs from state to state so its possible country will face fluctuation. If a region was less affected by the first two waves or has low vaccination rates will find it difficult to contain the third wave.
She added that India may be entering some kind of stage of endemicity where there is a moderate or low level of transmission going on but there is no exponential growth or peaks that was seen a few months ago.
Dr. Swaminathan further said that she hopes by the end of 2022, we would be in that position to achieve vaccine coverage of almost 70% for the nations to get back to normal. Talking about the third, WHO Chief Scientist clarified that it is impossible to predict the third wave of COVID-19. It will be impossible to predict where and when the third wave will be upon us or if it will come at all.
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines an endemic as “the constant presence and/or usual prevalence of a disease or infectious agent in a population within a geographic area”. It means the population will be adaptive to the disease.
Other Countries are slowly learning to live with coronavirus and relaxed restrictions. Focus is gradually being shifted to containing infections and expediting the vaccination process.
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