With the ferocious second surge having ravaged parts of India, how do we begin to prepare for the next one? Can pandemic planning happen with opaque data? Do we understand enough about the role variants play?
India is still in the midst of a devastating second wave. A wave that caught us unfortunately unprepared and overconfident. The states have struggled and faltered in their response, some more than others. As the wave goes through rural India, our data has been exposed, variants have been given a free run and our vaccine programme has stalled.
As we collect ourselves and come to terms with loss, we must also regroup, plan, admit the mistakes made and learn from them to be prepared for the next surge.
We speak to Dr Giridhar R Babu, an epidemiologist and a professor at Public Health Foundation of India, and Dr Rakesh Mishra, director of CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad and member of INSACOG, India’s Genome Sequencing Consortia set up to sequence COVID variants and to work as a warming system for govt.
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