It appears as if no expert, including those from the medical world, is clear about the onset of a third corona wave in India. Though Kerala and Maharashtra have been witnessing big-time resurgence, overall, infection across India is declining perhaps due to rapid vaccination.
The kids and teenagers, though not vaccinated, have enormous fighting power. All the same, it is absolutely true that infection resurgence has been big wherever people have been let loose because of infection taking a downward slide. Maharashtra and Kerala are two such regions. Kerala got into fresh crisis obviously for the Onam festival. Crowds bumped into one another merrily and caused the corona resurgence havoc. Maharashtra has big cities including Mumbai, all melting pots where incalculably huge numbers of people cross roads, both local and floating.
The rest of India has nearly woken up to this fact but have not come on adequate guard so far. No one can deny the fact that between livelihood and life, neither is less important. If one keeps hiding, one may be able to keep corona warded off, but one is forced to die of hunger.
So, Governments, to keep life on, have been forced to open up happening places, construction and factory sites, shops and malls and more. Unfortunately, once these economic activity centres are thrown open, the people in general tend to forget that the virus has ever been around.
The Covid-appropriate behaviour is merrily forgotten or ignored. Meanwhile, the pathogen has mutated and become much more virulent. Even full-course vaccine protection is broken through. It must be known here that vaccine effect actually lasts half a year only.
Israel, the only country to have been fully jabbed has started witnessing resurgence of the mutant virus. Rattled like mad, the authorities are preparing to give the third dose vaccine they imported from the US. Even the Americans and Europeans are beginning to inoculate people of their countries a third time to keep antibody levels high enough to fight the mutant virus effectively.
Wherever schools have opened, infection has surged. Evidence is clear that it will be premature to open schools at the present. In India’s Punjab, only recently, 27 school kid cases in just one week indicated there is danger lurking. Israel opened schools; and within a week, it was discovered that 100% of the new infections were traced to schools. They had to close them instantly without second thought. A country, which had boasted of being the first ‘no-Covid’ country, had to bite tongue and hang head in hidden panic. In the US, schools have been repeatedly opened and shut due to the Covid spread in a similar manner. South Korea deferred school opening five times.
Meanwhile, 4.3 million US children have been infected even after the vaccine was discovered and injected into the adults. Latest news is that an increasing number of American children are being hospitalised with more serious infection than at any point in the pandemic.
Though it is true that millions of Indian children haven’t had the benefit of online education, still a little more patience would be wise. The Governments have to look up geography, economic status and physical environments of schools before deciding to open them. Authorities must organise serious parent-teacher meetings to discuss plans as infections are very likely to go up in India between September and first half of November as per the warnings of experts.
The situation in India will remain fluid at least for some two or three more months, more so because the country has practically been flung open only to keep poor people getting back to livelihood activities to avoid starvation death.
While emphasising that the goal across the world is to promote safer in-person learning and child care, the WHO advises that decisions on full or partial closure or reopening of schools should be taken by the local administrators guided by local levels of transmission of the virus as well as the extent to which reopening of these institutions may enhance transmission in the community. The WHO advises four categories of district or sub-district-based strategy: Districts with no cases or sporadic cases are advised to keep all schools open and implement Covid prevention and control measures. Districts with cluster transmission can keep most schools open and consider closing schools in the areas experiencing an infection surge in clusters including schools.
Needless to say, districts with community transmission shall most likely require school closure particularly with increasing trends of Covid cases, hospitalisations and deaths. School-based transmission is a known driver of influenza epidemics; and mandatory closure of schools is a key public health intervention since ages.The latest US experience has indicated that more intense contact and mixing among children and adolescents in schools increase susceptibility.
Incidentally, the second wave in Israel started shortly after reopening of schools at the beginning of May 2020 with major outbreaks in several high schools. This was followed by a lockdown and schools reopened in September. This led to a surge of cases again, specifically in the 15-19 year age group. It has been considered prudent to consider this age group as adults in terms of the transmission characteristics. Some analysts suggest that secondary transmission in school settings is significant only when prevention strategies are not implemented or are not followed. Outbreaks can certainly occur in school settings, particularly in India where imposing strict Covid-appropriate behaviour is rather difficult, nay impossible, as even school authorities including senior teachers too are joyfully lax and casual.
The complete set of layered prevention strategies include promoting vaccination, consistent and correct use of masks for all children above the age of 2 years, physical distancing, screening testing for early identification of cases, improved ventilation with large open windows to increase dilution of indoor air by outdoor air, handwashing and respiratory etiquette, staying home when sick and getting tested, contact tracing and routine cleaning with disinfection. Above all, teachers and other staffs shall need to be vaccinated and protected as substantial proportions of them can be expected to have co-morbidities. All this is tough to ensure in most Indian settings.
So, until the round-the-corner festival season is over in early November, schools better be kept closed. Even though children under 18 are less likely to be seriously ill or transmit the virus vigorously, they can still make the elderly and the co-morbid members at home sick. Especially when the two-dose jabs have begun losing efficacy as is being observed across the globe.
The Odisha Chief Minister has internalised the issue just too well to caution the people to go on guard seriously. If they follow the advice, fine. But if they defy, imposition of a tight lockdown again is certain to happen.