Listen to experts

Govt must no longer ignore scientific advice

In the midst of a pandemic, it is vital that the elected government listen very carefully to the best scientific advice. It is clear that the Union government has failed to do so in recent months, and it should correct this mistake. News agency Reuters has reported that the government’s own committee of scientists tracking the pandemic, the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium, or INSACOG, had warned the government in early March about the emerging variant B.1617, which is now understood to be more infectious than the original strain and also has a mutation, enabling a degree of immune escape —