Covid's disappearance or 100% vaccine rollout: Medical practitioners argue

Jaipur, Jan 11 (IANS) Amid the dwindling Covid-19 numbers and the extensive preparations for roll-out of the coronavirus vaccine in India, the medical experts are discussing the million dollar question: which phenomenon will emerge first -- the natural disappearance of the virus or the total vaccination for containing the virus.

A total of 16,311 new coronavirus cases have been reported in the last 24 hours in India -- the lowest in around six-and-half months.

Also, a total of 161 more fatalities have been reported in India which is the lowest in the last seven-and-half-months, the Union Health Ministry's data showed.

In fact, the Covid figures since the last many days are touching a new low in India which signify the reducing impact of the virus.

Virendra Singh, a senior medical practitioner quoted the 2002-2004 SARS outbreak and said: "The SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) came up in 2002 and made a strong impact in the far East nations. However, slowly, it vanished in 2004 on its own. In many far East countries, its spread was quite strong but its disappearance was also sudden. It was also called as SARS-COV-1, which was more like an elder brother to SARS Covid 2. So 'both brothers' might have some similar features and in this perspective, it can disappear on its own."

Speaking in the same reference, Dr. Sudhir Bhandari, principal and controller, SMS Medical College, says the natural evolution of virus could be the strong reason for the dwindling numbers of the covid cases. Virus severity, over the time, goes down. Also people are now following social distancing and are wearing masks which is checking its spread. Thirdly, herd immunity is being generated at large. Over the period of time, it will be evaluated which factors worked the most in this matter," he added.

He further added that the virus follows a natural course of history. Quoting the case of Swine Flu, he said: "Swine flu comes out strong every four years. In the last two years, there has been no strong case of swine flu. While most of these viruses disappear on their own, many others mutate and change their nature."

The Spanish flu which hit us large over a century back also disappeared after two years. At that time, the medical infrastructure across the world was not so strong. Viruses hence can be seen following a natural cyclic pattern," added Bhandari.

However, emphasising on vaccination, he said: "Vaccine will help a lot at this point of time as we shall develop herd immunity via vaccine and therefore, the process of vaccination is of paramount importance, he added.

--IANS

arc/dpb/pgh