PremiumMaria Van Kerkhove's, an epidemiologist at the WHO, words must not be lost on us in India, where pandemic fatigue has relaxed attitudes too, even though cases have been on a slow but clear incline. Sure, risk levels are not like they were last summer, but health prudence still demands our alertness
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While we have moved on with life as covid appears farther in the rear-view mirror, the health threat it poses is far from over. A Twitter thread by Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist at the World Health Organization, has outlined the concern. Kerkhove flagged a 15% rise in covid cases and a 35% rise in deaths globally in the last four weeks and noted that cases would continue to occur due to the limited use of public health and social measures. Also, while the Omicron BA.5 variant is dominant, spotting new variants will be challenging as testing drops. It’s likely that newer mutations will be more transmissible, perhaps also better able to sneak past our immune systems, she added, even if the severity of their infection is hard to predict. Kerkhove’s caution seems aimed chiefly at the US, whose Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently eased its guidelines so sharply that it hinted of having people learn to live with covid. But her words must not be lost on us in India, where pandemic fatigue has relaxed attitudes too, even though cases have been on a slow but clear incline. Sure, risk levels are not like they were last summer, but health prudence still demands our alertness.