Reopening risks

Another wave is not outside the realm of possibility

As businesses fete the return to normalcy after two years of lockdowns of varying severity, experience suggests that the rapid departure from minimum safety precautions in public places, such as masking and social distancing, could be risky. The reopening of offices, schools, malls, and cinema halls, and the reversal of restrictions on numbers in public transport and at gatherings such as weddings have been influenced by two factors. The first is the sharp decline in the number of daily cases from a high of 347,000 in late January, the peak of the third wave, to about 5,000 cases now. This is a remarkable drop in spite of Assembly elections being conducted in five states. The second is the rising number of fully vaccinated people. This number, which now stands at roughly 800 million, has admittedly raised the margin of safety from the virus significantly.

The rapid decline in cases and the relative mildness of the Omicron variant that dominated the third wave, with far fewer deaths than those that occurred during the first two waves, were attributed to the fact that the bulk of the adult population had received at least one dose of the vaccine, and that masking and social-distancing rules were in place. However, about 40 per cent of the adult population is still to be fully vaccinated, and children below 15 years have not received any doses. These large unvaccinated cohorts represent the potential vectors of the disease, leaving considerable scope for accelerating the velocity of the infection. That apart, the widespread prevalence of asymptomatic cases, coupled with the sharp fall in the incidence of testing, also raises risk levels.
 

To be sure, this third reopening has seen none of the triumphalism or governmental claims of having “defeated” the virus that preceded the deleterious second wave. The Delta variant, which saw the number of daily cases rise to over 400,000 and daily death rate at 4,000-plus, was partly the result of an injudicious haste to reopen, the relaxation of social-distancing norms, and the fumbled start of the vaccination programme. But the understandable pressures to kick-start the economy have meant that the lessons of that avoidable tragedy appear to have been inadequately absorbed. Indeed, researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, have injected a note of caution. The IIT-K team has suggested that a fourth wave will hit India on June 22 and continue till October 24. Although experts have questioned the findings principally because the research is yet to be peer-reviewed, this is the same team that had predicted the outbreak of the first three waves with some accuracy.

A fourth wave is not outside the realm of possibility, given that advanced polities such as Hong Kong are suffering a debilitating fifth wave, which spread primarily through the unvaccinated population living in a congested island, conditions that obtain in most Indian cities. The IIT-K team has said the severity of the next wave will depend on the emergence of new variants, the number of unvaccinated people, and the administration of booster doses. It is possible that they are off the mark. But the first three waves have highlighted the risks of premature assumptions in the other direction.