Daily News Capsule

AIIMS chief Delhi Director Dr. Randeep Guleria on Tuesday said that there is no data, either in India or internationally, to indicate that children will be seriously infected in any next wave of COVID-19.

Addressing a joint press conference on the COVID-19 situation here, Dr. Guleria said it is a piece of misinformation that subsequent waves of the COVID-19 pandemic are going to cause severe illness in children. There is no data – either from India or globally – to show that children will be seriously infected in subsequent waves,” he said.

What did Dr. Randeep Guleria AIIMS Cheif say?

• He said that 60 – 70 percent of children who were infected during the second wave in India and admitted to hospitals either had co-morbidities or had low immunity and healthy children recovered from mild illness without requiring hospitalization.
• AIIMS chief says that waves normally occur in pandemics caused due to respiratory viruses – the 1918 Spanish Flu, H1N1 (swine) flu are examples. The second wave of 1918 Spanish Flu was the biggest, after which there was a smaller third wave.
• Multiple waves occur when there is a susceptible population. When a large part of the population acquires immunity against the infection, the virus becomes endemic and infection becomes seasonal – like that of H1N1 that commonly spreads during monsoon or winters.
• Waves can occur due to change in the virus (such as new variants). Since new mutations become more infectious, there is a higher chance for the virus to spread,” he said
• AIIMS chief says people strictly follow COVID-19 appropriate behavior.
• Whenever cases increase, there is a fear in people, and human behavior changes.
• People strictly follow COVID-appropriate behavior and non-pharmaceutical interventions help break the chain of transmission.
• But when unlocking resumes, people tend to think that not much infection will happen and tend to not follow COVID appropriate behavior. Due to this, the virus again starts spreading in the community, leading potentially to another wave,” AIIMS chief said.

If we have to stop subsequent waves, we need to aggressively follow COVID appropriate behavior until we can say that a significant number of our population is vaccinated or has acquired natural immunity. When enough people are vaccinated or when we acquire natural immunity against the infection, then these waves will stop. The only way out is to strictly follow COVID appropriate behavior,” Dr. Randeep Guleria added

Luv Agarwal, Joint Secretary of the Union Health Ministry

• He said 86,498 new COVID-19 cases have been reported in the last 24 hours.
• There has been a drop of nearly 79 percent in cases since the highest daily new cases were reported.
• Last week, there was a 33 percent drop in the total reported cases and in the last month, 322 districts have seen a drop in daily cases.
• Overall recovery has increased to 94.3 percent (both home isolation +medical infrastructure) and a 6.3 percent overall decrease in positivity between June 1 to June 7.
• There is a 33 percent decline in the number of cases in the last week and a 65 percent reduction in active cases.
• Luv Agarwal are 15 states with less than 5 percent positivity.

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