• India on Sunday reported 1,761 Covid cases and 127 fatalities. The cumulative caseload is 43,007,841 (26,240 active cases) and 516,479 fatalities
• Worldwide: Over 469.71 million cases and over 6.07 million fatalities.
• Vaccination in India: Over 1.81 billion doses. Worldwide: Over 10.78 billion doses.

With daily new Covid-19 cases ebbing and vaccination coverage surging, health experts say it’s time to let go of the fear of the novel coronavirus whilst still observing pandemic protocols such as wearing masks and widening vaccine coverage.

Why they say so?

• According to Dr Samiran Panda, additional director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), while “relaxations observed in states must continue”, public health authorities should advise people that there’s no need to to be “living in fear forever.”
• Already certain states have removed all Covid-19 restrictions — such as Punjab which last week removed all pandemic era restrictions such as caps on public gatherings though it advised people to continue with face masks and social distancing. The state was among the worst affected during the first wave of Covid-19.
• Other states like Sikkim, Haryana and Telangana too removed all restrictions last month, following the Centre’s recommendations to all states/Union territories (UTs), asking them to review and amend or end additional Covid-19 restrictions. Panda in fact advises constant monitoring and surveillance by hospitals for any variants that might escape immunity.

So, no more waves then?

• The Centre in fact has already asked states and UTs to start monitoring all cases of influenza like illnesses in view of the rising number of cases in China, parts of Europe and Hong Kong, where a fourth wave is being seen and in countries like South Korea, where more than 6 lakh new cases were reported in a day last week. However, Panda says it’s unlikely that India will “mirror another country now.”
• The reason, say experts, is not only due to a combination of increased vaccine coverage and boosted immunity from the third wave but also because India used a different set of vaccines to immunise its population compared to China and Europe. While China used its indigenously developed vaccines, made by Sinovac and Sinopharm, Europe was largely reliant on the vaccine made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna — all of which are not available in India.
• Moreover, as Dr Shashank Joshi, member of the Maharashtra government’s task force on Covid-19 pointed out, the BA.2 variant — a sub-variant of Omicron with more than 50 mutations — has been present in India “right at the beginning of the third wave” according to the genome sequencing done of both BA.1 and BA.2, which is why he feels there’s little chance of a fresh Covid-19 wave in India “though we shouldn’t stop wearing a mask.”

• According to a study published in the journal Pediatrics, children previously infected with Covid-19 develop natural circulating antibodies that last for at least seven months. The study, conducted by The University of Texas Health Science Centre at Houston, School of Public Health in Dallas, US, showed that 96% of those infected with Covid-19 continued to have antibodies up to seven months later.
• The research team examined data from 218 children across the state of Texas between the age of 5 and 19 who were enrolled in the Texas CARES survey that began in October 2020 to assess Covid-19 antibody status over time among a population of adults and children in Texas. It also found that 58% of the samples tested negative for infection-induced antibodies at their third and final measurement.
• Researchers were provided with three separate blood samples drawn from the volunteers at different stages — once before the vaccine rollout followed by once each during the Delta and Omicron variant waves.
• “These findings are important because the information we collected from children infected with Covid-19 didn’t differ at all by whether a child was asymptomatic, the severity of symptoms, when they had the virus, were at a healthy weight or had obesity, or by gender. It was the same for everyone,” said Sarah Messiah, who was part of the research team.