HOW TO STOP COVID’S SECOND WAVE
Covid was always an insidious enemy. In March 2020, it crept up on us without fair warning. In March 2021, just when we thought we had got the better of the virus, dropped our masks, shunned social distancing, opened up our offices, wedding venues, hotels, gyms, cinema halls and even swimming pools, it struck again, rudely reminding us that it hadn’t gone anywhere. From 1,000-2,000 new cases a day in the beginning of March, the number of daily infections/new cases reached 7,000-8,000 towards the end of the month. By April 1, active cases in the country touched 610,927, from 165,000 just a month ago. On April 6, India saw 115,312 new cases in 24 hours—the highest figure since the onset of the pandemic. Covid’s spread has always been exponential—starting as a trickle and turning into a torrent. It is something states like Kerala, Maharashtra and Delhi have seen happen at least twice before. It is something the rest of the country forgot.
“It is simple math—if one person infects another, you have one new case in a day. But when you have two people infecting two more, you get two new cases, then four, then eight, and so on,” says virologist T. Jacob John. Known as the reproduction number, or the R value, it is a key determinant of a pandemic. For cases to fall, the R value has to be below 1. On April 6, India’s R number was 1.3, having risen from 1.18 in just two weeks. The arrival of the second wave was swift, assisted by the slow clampdown on the rising infection rates at the local level. Individual states have it worse—Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have an R value of 1.6, while in Delhi, which is witnessing its fourth wave of infections, it is 1.5. The figures for all these states are the highest since the pandemic began. Maharashtra has an R value of 1.2 this week. The higher R value is what alarms virologists and doctors more than the
