ICMR Chief Attributes 2 Reasons Why Youngsters Are Getting Affected by Covid 2nd Wave

As more young people are getting infected in the ongoing second phase of the Covid-19, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Chief Dr Balram Bhargava has attributed the trend to primarily two factors behind the surge.

“We have found that younger people are getting slightly more involved because suddenly they have gone out and there are variants also prevalent in the nation which may be affecting the younger people as well, Bhargava said, according to a report in Hindustan Times.”

On being asked whether the Centre is taking any step to initiate vaccination of the children who are said to be the target of the third wave, Dr Bhargava said there is not much difference in age between the first and the second wave. “We have been analysing the date since August. People above the age of 45 years are more vulnerable to any adverse outcome and the hospitalised mortality is around 9.6 to 9.7 per cent,” he said.

The report said that though more young people are getting infected in the ongoing wave, which started around March, the Centre had refuted the reports of the shift in age groups in April. The Centre showed data claiming that in the first wave, 31 per cent of people affected were under the age of 30 years while in 2021, the percentage rose to 32.

The government’s principal scientific advisor K Vijay Raghavan had said that the country should be prepared for a third wave of the pandemic which can be thwarted if adequate precautions are taken. Raghavan said the “insidious asymptomatic transmission” can be stopped if the guidance about precautions, surveillance, containment, treatment and testing is followed. “If we take strong measures, the third wave may not happen in all places or indeed anywhere at all. It depends on much how effectively guidance is implemented at the local level in the states, districts and cities everywhere.

Various reports have claimed that the third wave will impact children more. The Maharashtra government has started setting up paediatric care centres in the state preparing for the third wave.

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