THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The crisis sparked by COVID-19 is far from over, said Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Director-General Shekhar C Mande. According to him, the country is nowhere near achieving herd immunity and as such people should continue to wear masks and maintain social distancing and hand hygiene to insulate themselves against the virus. He was speaking on the topic’ Ïndia’s response to COVID-19 from S & T perspective’ during a virtual ‘National Science Day Lectures,’ organised by Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology here.
The CSIR chief warned against ‘complacency’ since a third wave will precipitate a far more dangerous situation than the challenge the country had faced so far. Mande expressed hope that the COVID-19 vaccines will be effective against virus’ variants. The evidence ‘is not very strong’ that the vaccines will not work against the mutated virus. “We would like to believe that the vaccines are effective against the variants as the vaccines worked against the entire part of the virus while the mutation took place on a part of the virus,” he said.