While commenting on the number of young people getting more infected in the ongoing massive second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Indian Council of Medical Research Chief Dr. Balram Bhargava said that there are primarily two reasons behind the surge.
Without dismissing the possible contribution of variants, he said, “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.”
Dr. Bhargava, during the press briefing of the health ministry on Tuesday, was asked whether the Centre is taking any step to initiate vaccination of the children who are considered to be the largest of the third wave of the pandemic. To this, replied: “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.”
Though more and more young people are getting infected on the ongoing wave of Covid-19 that started around March this year, the Centre in April refuted the reports of the shift in age groups.
However, the Centre showed a 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.
Recently the government’s principal scientific advisor K Vijay Raghavan said that the country must get prepared for the third wave of the pandemic which can be thwarted if adequate precautions are taken. And since then, several reports have been reported on this that what will be the impact of this on the children.
Following this Maharashtra government has already started preparing for the third wave and have started setting up paediatric care centres in the state preparing for the third wave.
