BENGALURU: While there are speculations about the onset of a third wave of Covid-19, experts believe that the country is at the tailend of the second wave but warn that Karnataka may see the next wave soon. “It is still the continuation of the second wave in most states since there is no intermittent period of lower circulation levels. Given the continuing circulation in rural and urban areas, which hitherto had lower seroprevalence, it suggests that the disease is expanding widely,” said Dr Giridhara Babu, epidimeologist and member of Technical Advisory Committee.
Dr Gagandeep Kang, renowned virologist, Professor of Microbiology, CMC Vellore, believes that we are at “the tail end of the second wave.” In Karnataka, explaining that though the number of cases are on the decline, Dr Manjunath C N, Director, Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases and Research said the authorities must take note of what relaxations are being given and added that people should avoid creating superspreader events. “There is no way we can get complacent. Karnataka has not seen an onset of third wave yet. But we may soon start to see such trends,” he said.
Dr Shashikiran U, Professor and Head of General Internal Medicine at Dr TMA Pai Hospital, Udupi, says this is probably the end of the second wave and also the likelihood of the start of the third wave. “Even in July last year, when we thought we won’t see another wave, we saw a similar pattern. I think we are at the arrival of the third wave and we may not see a gap between the two waves. There was a strict lockdown last time, but this time that’s not there.”
Dr Vishal Rao, Dean, Centre for Academic Research, HCG Hospitals, and member of Genome Sequencing Committee, said the signatures of the past waves, epidemiologically or genomically, shows the first wave was driven by the D614G variant and the second by the Delta variant. “I believe that there will be another third wave which will be caused by the Delta variant which could genomically be synonymous to the second wave or may be an extension of it. But, if the third wave is going to see a signature of a completely new variant, which is part of the evolution of the Delta, then it is going to be more worrisome,” he said.
“We must now keep our eyes on where and how the plateau has been achieved. Was it due to a forced lockdown-kind of scenario? As of now, we have been able to keep the number of cases low only due to the implementation of socio-economic intervention by the government, which was behaviourally induced through a forced lockdown,” he said.
Dr Rao believes that the third wave might hit us by August third week, considering that the jump time of the Delta variant has been from around 3% to 30% in two months. “We have already passed the 15 days of the two-month period we have. So, my estimation from the fact that our vaccination has been slow, virulence of the variant has not reduced and now with the state in unlock mode, we will see the third wave by the end of August.”