Covid-19 now endemic in country, say virologists
BENGALURU: Covid-19 has reached an “endemic” stage, say the country’s two top virologists -- Dr Gagandeep Kang, professor, Christian Medical College, Vellore, and Dr V Ravi, nodal officer, INSACOG lab at Nimhans, and head of Research and Development, Tata Medical and Diagnostic Centre.That Covid-19 has become endemic does not mean the virus has disappeared; instead, one can infer that with enough people gaining immune protection from vaccination and from natural infection, there will be less transmission and much lower Covid-related hospitalisation and death. The virus will continue to mutate and circulate.
“Covid-19 has been endemic since last year. The virus has not gone away; new sub-variants will keep coming. We need to be aware of them but there is no need to get paralysed out of fear. We know how to deal with them,” said Kang. She added that maintaining genomic and clinical surveillance is, however, a must to develop an evidence-based scientific strategy to deal with future mutations of the virus.
The new sub-variant of Omicron -- BA.2.75 -- reported in 10 states, including Karnataka, Delhi and Maharashtra, are because of “high mutations”.
“There is no need to be alarmist,” said Ravi. He explained that the “original Omicron had 51 mutations whereas its new strains -- BA.2.74, BA.2.75, BA.2.76 -- have 80 mutations, which means they could be more infectious but not more virulent. Covid-19 is now endemic, which means there will be low level of transmission, with some spurts. There will be many more infections than what is being reported. Testing is not being emphasised, unless there are huge cluster outbreaks,” said Ravi.
Both Kang and Ravi added that the vulnerable population -- the elderly and those with comorbidities -- need to be careful and watch out for severe symptoms. They also said that earlier infections are no guarantee against new variants. “Being doubly vaccinated will not prevent re-infection but will help against serious infections,” said Ravi.
The two top virologists stressed on the role of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in the country as protection against the virus, and the hybrid immunity that most Indians would have developed by now. “Around 90 per cent of the adult Indian population has received both doses of the vaccine. Those who have not been vaccinated are also vulnerable for infection, unless they have already had Covid. Many of them would not even know if they were asymptomatic,” said Ravi. Kang said that “80-90 per cent of the adult population in India would have by now developed hybrid immunity” (the immune protection in individuals who have had one or more dose of vaccine and experienced at least one SARS-CoV-2 infection before or after vaccination).
On the booster dose, Kang said though SARS-Cov-2 vaccines are good, the right time to boost continues to remain a challenge. “We need to plan studies that teach us how to use booster doses,” she added. Ravi said that vaccine coverage in India is far better than in many other countries. Masking in public, congested places is a must, but compliance is a challenge. “There is huge pandemic fatigue in public,” said the virologist.