DNA Special: How dangerous will be the third wave of coronavirus?

The Union Health Ministry on Wednesday informed that the way the COVID-19 infection is spreading in the country, it is clear that the third wave of this virus is inevitable. When this wave will come and for how long, it cannot be predicted right now.

Currently, many variants of COVID are active in India and these variants are spreading the infection in different states and regions. The most dangerous of these is the Double Mutant virus, which scientists have named B.1.617 and this variant is made in India only.

So far, the UK variant of COVID, Brazil variant, South Africa variant and America has also got a variant in the country. Many more variants of the virus have been identified in different states. In this, the variant which is most discussed is the Andhra Pradesh variant. However, this variant is still limited in a few areas.

The study done by doctors says that these variants are currently creating new strains of the virus, due to which the virus can attack people by taking many forms. And due to so many variants, third wave of COVID can come in the country.

The thing to understand here is that when the first wave of COVID came, the virus would kill the lungs in 10 days. In the second wave, this time period reduced from 5 to 7 days. And it is being said that in the third wave, it can be even 2 to 3 days.

The Andhra Pradesh variant is doing the same. This variant delivers the patient to the ICU bed within 2 to 3 days and then kills the patient. Not only this, it is 15 times more contagious than the rest of the variants.

Some studies have predicted that in the first wave, the virus attacked the elderly, in the second wave it is affecting the youth more and in the third wave, it can be dangerous for children.

According to a study, children under the age of 18 currently account for 30 percent of the total population of India. And so far, no vaccine has been introduced for children under 18.

In this study, it has been estimated that if children above 18 years of age get vaccinated, then the virus will attack kids under 18. And it can also cause serious harm to children aged 6 to 12 years.

So here you have to keep two things in mind. First - even children can become COVID positive and secondly if the third wave is possible, then the schools in the country will remain closed for a long time.

However, doctors have also given a solution to this problem. They've said that if children under 18 are also given vaccines, India will be able to fight the third wave. But that would require a vaccine, which has not yet been developed.

The Serum Institute of India has said that it will develop the vaccine by October of this year, while Bharat Biotech, the maker of Covaxin, is also working on it and its vaccine is in the trial stage.

American company Pfizer has made vaccines for children and in Canada, it has been approved for use in children above 12 years. It is hoped that it will be approved soon in the US as well. Apart from this, Moderna company is also working on it.

But if we look at the situation in the context of India, one thing is clear - The third wave in India is inevitable while there is very less possibility of vaccine for children soon.

So far, around 16 crore people have been vaccinated in India. Of these, the number of people that have taken the first dose of vaccine is about 13 crore and the number of people taken both doses is around 3 crore. Accordingly, about 2 percent of the people in the country have been administered both doses of the vaccine. While US Chief Medical Officer Anthony Fauci said that 85 percent of the country's total population will have to be vaccinated to prevent the coronavirus.