Image Credit: India Today
The third wave of Covid-19 infections in India could be as severe as the second one, the State Bank of India(SBI) has warned in its report. Highlighting the possibility of children being the most vulnerable to a third wave, SBI calls for vaccination of this age group to be a key priority.
The largest bank of India, in a five-page report, says that the average duration of the third wave of coronavirus in developed countries can be of 98 days. For comparison, the duration for the second wave in the same countries was 108 days. However, the bank believes that if health infrastructure across the country is ramped up, it would lead to fewer deaths from a possible third wave. “The decline in serious case rate (patients that require oxygen, intensive care unit beds, etc.) will lead to fewer deaths,” the SBI report said.
In addition to better healthcare infrastructure, SBI also recommends increasing the pace of vaccination against Covid-19. Giving a figurative estimate, it says, “We find that if serious cases decline from 20 per cent to 5 per cent (due to better health infrastructure and vaccination) in the third wave, the number of deaths in the third wave could significantly reduce to 40,000, as compared to the current deaths of more than 0.17 million.”
In addition, special attention needs to be paid to the vaccination of children in the age group of 12 to 18 years as they can be the most vulnerable in case a third wave of the pandemic arrives. The bank suggests that the government must go for an advanced procurement strategy to ensure that vaccines are available for 150 to 170 million children in India.
Meanwhile, Covid-19 cases continued to fall in the country after reaching a peak on May 7. In the last 24 hours, 1,32,788 new coronavirus cases were recorded while 2,887 deaths were reported. Active cases of the virus have now come down to 17.13 lakh. 22.1 crore vaccine doses have been administered since the start of the vaccination drive on 16 January this year.
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βοΈ#StaySafe, follow #COVIDAppropriateBehaviour and get yourself vaccinatedπ#We4Vaccine #LargestVaccinationDrive pic.twitter.com/qpzDMMSjdg
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