Pulp-It | In 2022, what India must do to learn to live with Covid - Hindustan Times
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Pulp-It | In 2022, what India must do to learn to live with Covid

Dec 11, 2021 05:57 PM IST

Covid-19 will become endemic in India. It’s important to tailor our response to this phase around four interventions.

2020 was the year of the pandemic for India — despite this year, 2021, seeing more cases and deaths.

India should mandate (and strictly enforce the mandate of) masks — not just cloth ones, but surgical ones, or N95s — in all closed spaces (Parveen Kumar/Hindustan Times) PREMIUM
India should mandate (and strictly enforce the mandate of) masks — not just cloth ones, but surgical ones, or N95s — in all closed spaces (Parveen Kumar/Hindustan Times)

2021 was (is) the year of the vaccine; the year of economic recovery; and the year when we realized that we will have to live with the virus, perhaps forever.

The emergence of the Omicron variant, and the fact that India has fully vaccinated only 55% of its adult population (another 30% are partially vaccinated) may mean we continue to treat Covid-19 as the pandemic (or epidemic) it is for some more time.

Preliminary research suggests that a booster shot may be necessary to prevent symptomatic Covid (and not just severe illness) for people who do not have the hybrid immunity that full vaccination and prior illness bestows. Partial vaccination, especially among those who haven’t suffered a prior infection, by extension, likely bestows no protection at all against the variant.

But at some point in time — if Omicron does not result in a sharp rise in infections in India, or, in case it does, a few months after what will be the third wave — Covid-19 will become endemic in India (actually, at the level at which it is right now, daily cases at around the same levels as June last year, it can already be treated as an endemic), albeit one that has the potential to spiral into an epidemic at short notice.

It’s important to tailor our response to this phase around four interventions.

Masking is the first. India should mandate (and strictly enforce the mandate of) masks — not just cloth ones, but surgical ones, or N95s — in all closed spaces. Having masks on is a small price to pay if it allows people to get on with their lives and work.

Ventilation is the second. I’ve written about this previously in the daily column I wrote on Covid during the first and second waves; offices, schools, and public places (malls, stores etc) should focus on ventilation. There are now a clutch of solutions available — from expensive ones requiring filters and physical changes to buildings, to low cost ones that merely require a smart understanding of air flows and the use of windows.

Vaccines and booster doses are the third. The government should put in place restrictions for the unvaccinated and announce incentives for the vaccinated to maximize coverage. It should also expand vaccine coverage to include at least those over the age of 12 years. And finally, with evidence now tilting in favour of boosters, India needs to move fast. It’s possible to administer booster doses to 300 million people in a month. That’s just what India needs to do (perhaps starting January 1).

Outbreak protocol is the fourth. India needs standardised protocol for air and train travel, testing and vaccination, quarantines, the declaration of containment zones, and the closure of educational institutions, retail and entertainment spaces, and offices. As the disease moves into endemic phase, there will be outbreaks, resulting in the flaring up of cases in some parts of the country; and given vaccine inequity, more variants, including some of concern will emerge. We cannot have each state coming up with its own protocol to deal with these, for that will hurt the still-nascent economic recovery. And there needs to be a clear trigger (ideally, one based on data) that defines when this protocol comes into play.

2022 may well be the year we learn how to live with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Sukumar Ranganathan is the Editor-in-Chief of Hindustan Times. He is also a comic-book freak and an amateur birder.

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