India’s high antibody count may bring less severe third wave
Lagatar24 Desk : With a sense of contradiction arising among experts, it has been a relief provided by some experts that the third wave is not likely to impact that much unless a new variant emerged.
The statement has come in lieu of proper vaccination and higher antibody count.
The fourth national serosurvey to test for Covid antibodies in people released by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on July 20 said that two-thirds of India’s population had the antibodies, either due to past infection or vaccination during June-July — when the second wave had battered India.
“Some states have a lower contribution to this calculation,” says Samiran Panda, head of epidemiology at the ICMR. “There is a tremendous amount of heterogeneity in states. A state where the second wave did not attain a big height can still face the third wave,” he adds.
Eight states, for instance, have been seeing a higher R0, or reproduction number, which indicates the average number of new infections caused by one infected person. Of these, Himachal Pradesh, where tourists are thronging in large numbers, and Jammu and Kashmir have recorded the highest R0.
“Delta cannot cause another wave,” says T Jacob John, former head of the Centre for Advanced Research in Virology and retired professor at Christian Medical College, Vellore. “A hypothetical new variant may cause it. Whoever predicts a third wave is predicting a third variant. That is astrology; it is a pseudoscience,” he adds.
John estimates that actual seroprevalence is likely to be around 75 per cent. “Serosurveys always underestimate the true picture. Antibodies below a certain threshold, for instance, do not get counted.”
The data, some experts also say, points to undercounting of cases, especially in states with the highest seroprevalence: Madhya Pradesh (79 per cent), Rajasthan (76 per cent) and Bihar (75 per cent). The health ministry had, however, explained that the detected number of cases are usually lower than the actual number of infections all over the world due to a large number of asymptomatic cases.
Contrary to government calls of caution that the second wave is still raging in India, John says it was over a month ago and the daily case count has been stable between 40,000 and 45,000 for more than a month. “We are on the calm surface of a lake, not a wave. If a number is steady for over a month, then we have to be gullible to believe that the wave is continuing,” John says.
According to scientific online publication Our World in Data, around 8 per cent of India’s population is fully vaccinated against Covid, while 20 per cent have received the first dose.
ICMR has stressed that the national serosurvey numbers are not representative of the situation in the states, which would require a different sampling. Cities like Delhi are unlikely to see another big surge, says Panda, adding, “Delhi has seen four waves already. India is a big country. All states do not behave uniformly.”
He, however, says that if states lift restrictions prematurely and throw all caution to the wind, then a third wave can begin just as the second wave is descending. This is precisely what had happened as the first wave receded. That time, too, experts had said India might escape a second wave. The reality was quite different.
States, therefore, have been asked to conduct their own serosurveys to understand the granular situation and take policy decisions accordingly. “The situation in states such as Maharashtra is tremendously different from district to district,” Panda says. “Local surveys will provide important insights.”
