Covid-19 pandemic: India has 6-8 months to vaccinate everyone, says Arora

India has a window of six to eight months to vaccinate everybody in the country, NK Arora, the chief of the Union government’s Covid-19 working group, said while commenting on the Indian Council of Medical Research report that the third wave will hit the country late. 

Arora said while speaking to news agency PTI that the third wave could happen in December this year. “Waves are linked to new variants or new mutations so there is a possibility as this is a new variant, but whether it will lead to a third wave is difficult to answer as it will depend upon two or three things," the chairman of Covid-19 Working Group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI), told the news agency. 

The government had said recently that the Delta variant was one of the major reasons for the surge in cases during the second wave. The Delta variant has affected 174 districts in the country. 

First of these, Arora said, is the proportion of population getting affected in the second wave and the second is the pace of vaccination. The government has a target of administering 10 million doses of Covid vaccine a day.  

The next wave, Arora said, would also depend upon strict adherence to Covid-appropriate behaviour, including wearing of the masks and maintaining a physical distance. 

A mathematical modelling study by a team of scientists from the ICMR and the Imperial College London, UK, has said a potential third wave of Covid seems unlikely to be as severe as the second wave.