CONTEXT  

• Experience across the world has shown that the third wave of Covid is evident.
• Evidence has shown that it took nearly eight weeks in the U.K. 17 weeks in Italy, and 23 weeks in the U.S. to go from a second to a third wave.
• In India, the third wave will be in the month of late November or December in India. Hence, planning and preparation for the third wave of Covid is needed.

MEASURES INDIA NEEDS TO TAKE FOR THIRD WAVE

Vaccination:

• Evidence has shown that vaccination might have already offered survival advantage to those aged 45 years and above.
• It has prevented deaths and has limited serious morbidity requiring ventilation or oxygenated beds. Hence extraordinary effort is needed to secure vaccines for vulnerable people.
• Vaccine constraints are going to be there till June. Till then people with comorbidities, irrespective of age should be prioritised for vaccination.
• There is a need to strengthen micro planning for vaccination. Health workers and volunteers need to go house to house and prepare lists of all the eligible beneficiaries.
• Strong mobilisation strategy which focused on bottom-up micro planning should be there to address the concerns of the vulnerable and improve access to vaccination sites.
• There is a need for strengthening surveillance programmes. Strict review system should be there to guide early identification of clusters.
• Also there should be a standardised definition for minimum cases to be detected in each part of the country to prevent third wave.

 Use data-driven interventions:

• • First important step in dealing with data is not suppressing data during the Pandemic.  
    • Modellers depend on data and suppressed data make their projection unreliable and hence results in wrong policies and programmes.
    • Hence data should be freely available to experts.

• Systematic collection, compilation and analysis of clinical, epidemiological and laboratory data is paramount to decision-making.

• • There should be a core expert group comprising clinicians, epidemiologists and laboratory personnel constituted at every level (district, State and national) and entrusted with the responsibility of suggesting appropriate interventions to the concerned authorities.

Non-pharmacological interventions:

• They can be also used as a cornerstone to halting transmission.
• Steps that can be taken are avoiding mass gatherings, closing schools, isolating those with infection, contact tracing etc.
• Non-pharmacological interventions will result in achieving at least a 50% reduction in transmission. This will be helpful in reducing the basic reproductive number lower or equal to one.

Identifying susceptible in the third wave:

• Susceptible persons comprise those who are not protected by vaccination or those who are not infected yet.
• Proportion of susceptible people is higher in the younger age groups including children.
• Hence, there is a need to target those serious illnesses which can result in straining our health system.

 WAY FORWARD

• We should immediately create adequate capacity to handle the surge so as to reduce the number of deaths.
• There is a need to enhance paediatric specialised beds and ICU so that we can handle complex disorders like Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome, meningitis and others.
• Last but not the least, counselling at the time of discharge and establishment of post COVID 19 care clinics and services for COVID-19 who are experiencing long-term residual effects of the disease both physically and mentally.

 Reference:

1. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/preparing-for-the-next-covid-19-wave/article34763742.ece