AIIMS Chief: No particular data claims future waves of COVID-19 will impacts Children

AIIMS Delhi Director, Dr. Randeep Guleria on Tuesday highlights that there is no data from neither India nor abroad, which shows that children will be impacted seriously by COVID-19’s future waves.

Similarly, India Shorts earlier on Monday reported, that NITI Aayog member Dr. VK Paul also assured the general public that there is no evidence yet, on the basis of which it can be considered that children will be impacted seriously in the Third wave of COVID-19. He also adds, “It is known that older children have been getting infected but often have little symptoms and only rarely any serious disease.”

However, Dr. Guleria also says that the media houses reporting information on “children will be seriously impacted in the third wave of COVID-19 is a piece of misinformation.” He mentions, that there is no data from any country claiming the misinformation.

He further adds, 60-70% of children who were infected and admitted to hospitals in the second wave of COVID-19, either had low level of immunity or comorbidities. However, children with healthy immune system recovered from mild fever without getting hospitalized.

Here is all you need to know about waves of pandemic and its gravity

Dr. Guleria says that waves are normal and they occur due to respiratory viruses, example of which is Spanish flu occurred in the year 1918 (swine flu).

The second wave of Spanish flu at that time was the extensive one and the third wave of which was smaller in comparison scale.

Multiple waves occur when there is a change in virus (new variant). And its common when there exist a large population. But fighting it requires strong immunity. He also adds that when the population acquires sufficient immunity against the virus, pandemic starts taking the phase of endemic, and becomes seasonal like that of H1N1 that generally occurs during winter and monsoon.

Major takeaways from Dr. Guleria to stop the subsequent waves of virus.

Dr. Guleria urged people to strictly follow the protocols.

According to NDTV reports, he further adds, “Whenever cases increase, there is a fear in people and human behaviour changes. People strictly follow COVID-appropriate behavior and non-pharmaceutical interventions help break the chain of transmission. But when unlocking resumes, people tend to think that not much infection will happen and tend to not follow COVID appropriate behavior. Due to this, the virus again starts spreading in the community, leading potentially to another wave,” he said.

If we want to stop the subsequent waves of the virus. We will have to strictly follow wearing masks, sanitizing hands, maintaining social distance and getting vaccinated.

Importantly, building immunity against the virus and following the COVID-19 guidelines is must as mentioned earlier.

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