Covid's China syndrome

Another booster and some basic precautions needed

The explosion of Covid-19 cases in China after the reversal of its deeply unpopular zero-Covid policy has raised fears of a return to the late-2019-early-2020 crisis. American public health scientist Eric-Feigl-Ding has described this wave as “thermonuclear bad” and predicted that 60 per cent of China and 10 per cent of the world’s population are likely to be infected in the next 90 days. The country is already reporting deaths and the virus is making its presence felt in the US, Brazil, South Korea and Japan. The prospect of a renewed outbreak in India cannot be ruled out. Given the store of experiential knowledge the country has gained, it is possible to ensure that recent history does not repeat itself.

The government has moved quickly by urging labs to conduct faster genome sequencing of positive case samples and more testing and reporting by state health administrations. On Wednesday, the Union health minister took to Twitter to urge people to wear masks in crowded places and take booster doses. Public health officials suggest that there is no need to panic, given that China is being afflicted with new sub-variants, mostly of the milder Omicron variety, and caseloads in India are down to a seven-day average of just 155. There is no place for complacency, either. India’s relative security from the latest Covid-19 surge is on account of the fact that the reopening of the economy and the vaccination programme have given the Indian population a degree of immunity from the virus. This is in contrast to China, where draconian lockdowns in “zero-Covid” days meant that large sections of the population did not come in contact with the virus or develop an immunity to it. This apart, China’s policy of relying exclusi

vely on indigenously developed vaccines Sinovac and Sinopharm has also proven problematic, since both have delivered only 45-55 per cent effectiveness in preventing infection.

But India’s self-congratulation on the relative success of its vaccination programme needs to be tempered by the sobering reality that large parts of its population are yet to take either the second dose or the third precautionary (booster) dose. Up to October 31, after which the government stopped publishing data, less than 50 per cent of Indians in the 12-14 age group had taken their second dose, and a little less than 30 per cent of Indians in the 15-18 age group were yet to do so. Both these age cohorts of school and college-going children are natural transmitters. Only those in the 45-59 and over 60 years have near-full coverage. When it comes to the booster dose, for which the government closed its free window, the picture changes significantly. Less than 17 per cent of young Indians (18-44 years), less than a quarter of middle-aged Indians (45 -59 years) and about 35 per cent of the elderly have taken the third dose. Thus, large swathes of the population remain under-vaccinated, even as the virus is spreading globally again. To prevent another lockdown, which would again damage the economy, it is critical for the government to resume its free vaccination programme for boosters — indeed, many Indians would be eligible for a fourth dose now — and make basic precautions such as masking and social-distancing norms compulsory again.