How India is doing now after the spread of the Delta variant

The delta variant was first detected in India last October and has led to a massive second wave of Covid-19 cases in the country.

Since then, the highly infectious strain has spread around the world.

The variant has usurped the previously dominant alpha variant, first detected in the UK last fall, and has caused new waves of infections in Europe and a worrying slope of cases in the US.

Indeed, the delta variant now accounts for 83% of all sequenced cases in the United States, said the director of the United States Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, Rochelle Walensky, on Tuesday, marking a dramatic increase from 50% the week of July 3.

The World Health Organization has previously warned that, based on the estimated transmission advantage of the delta variant, “it is expected to quickly outperform other variants and become the dominant circulating lineage in the world. over the next few months “.

In its last weekly report on Wednesday, the WHO noted that as of July 20, the prevalence of delta among specimens sequenced in the past four weeks exceeded 75% in many countries around the world including Australia, Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Denmark, India, Indonesia, Israel, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Africa and United Kingdom

But what about India where the delta variant first appeared in October?

The situation is still bad, the data shows, but not as bad as it was when the second wave peaked in the country, when daily new cases exceeded 400,000. On May 7, India reported a staggering 414,188 new infections and several thousand deaths.

Fortunately, cases have declined dramatically since then. India reported 41,383 new coronavirus infections and 507 new deaths on Thursday, data from India’s Ministry of Health tweeted.

The seven-day average of 38,548 new daily cases is a 3% drop from the previous average, according to data from Johns Hopkins University and Our World in Data.

Meanwhile, the percentage change in the number of new confirmed cases in the past seven days (compared to the number in the previous seven-day period) in parts of Europe and the United States is striking.

In France the percentage change in the number of new cases in the last seven days is 223% in France, 112% in Italy while in Germany the percentage change is 50%. In the United States, the percentage change in the past seven days is 58% higher than in the previous seven-day period.

Nonetheless, after the United States, India has the second highest number of recorded Covid cases in the world, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, with more than 31.2 million cases and nearly 419,000 deaths. .

During the first wave of the pandemic, India entered a national lockdown in March 2020 and this only started to be lifted around June of last year with a series of easing restrictions over the years. following summer months.

However, as the second (and much harder) wave struck earlier in 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi resisted pressure to re-impose a national lockdown, giving individual states the responsibility of reimposing restrictions instead. A member of Modi’s Economic Advisory Board defended the Modi government as it came under pressure in May, telling CNBC state governments should have the final say on social restrictions.

Additionally, and in a bid to deal with its Covid crisis, India has halted exports of Covid vaccines (it is making a nationwide version of the AstraZeneca-Oxford University shot called “Covishield”) and it is unlikely that it resume its exports before the end of the year.

Public health experts told the FT in late May that regional lockdowns, reduced social interactions and a growing number of antibodies against Covid in the general population were helping to bring down the infection rate in India. Vaccinations have also helped to continue the downward trend in cases.

Exposure to Covid during the second wave was illustrated by the latest data showing the prevalence of antibodies against Covid in the general population.

A national blood serum survey that tests for antibodies (known as a serological survey) was released on Tuesday and showed that two-thirds of India’s population have antibodies to Covid, Reuters reported, although around 400 million of India’s 1.36 billion people do not have antibodies. , revealed the investigation.

Overseeing one of the largest vaccination campaigns in the world (India is due to vaccinate around one billion adults) is no easy task and the overall vaccination rate remains slow compared to other countries in the world.

Figures from Our World in Data show that 87.5 million people (about 6.3% of the total population, including children) are fully immunized while 330.2 million people have received at least one dose. which means it lags behind the global average in which around 13% of people are fully immunized.

On Tuesday, Modi expressed concern for a “significant” number of healthcare and frontline workers who remain unvaccinated despite the launch of the vaccination program more than six months ago.

In a press release issued by the government in which the Prime Minister briefed officials on the Covid situation in India, Modi also spoke of the need “to remain vigilant by looking at the situation in various countries”, noting that “the mutations make this disease very unpredictable, and therefore we must all stick together and fight this disease. “

Chandrakant Lahariya, a New Delhi-based doctor who is also an expert in vaccines, public policy and health systems, told CNBC that India is not out of the woods yet.

“The results of the fourth national serological survey…. corroborate what many had suspected: 67.6% of the total population and 62% of those who were not vaccinated developed antibodies (against Covid). Almost all age groups above 6 years old. years have antibodies. This shows the extent of the spread of the virus in the second wave, ”he noted.

“We know that [the] the vaccination rate is lower than expected and the appropriate behavior to Covid is not optimal. With 400 million people still vulnerable, lowering our guard would be tantamount to inviting the next wave sooner. India must be fully prepared for any subsequent wave. What is happening in Indonesia, Vietnam or the UK is a wake-up call that no country can let its guard down and [that they] must do everything in their arsenal, ”he added.

The emergence of several important variants of concerns around the world (such as alpha, beta and delta) that then became mainstream “reaffirms how interconnected we are in this pandemic,” Lahariya continued.

“It reminds us that we must view pandemic challenges as one global community. It reminds us that we need all interventions and vaccine availability as our combined responsibility. Even though it may sound cliché, “No country can be safe until every country is safe” needs to be repeated until it is understood at all levels, “he said.

Lahariya believed more variants would emerge as the pandemic continued. “We should prepare for more variants, until the pandemic is declared over.” Where these variants will emerge next, no one knows.