Srinagar: With Kashmir valley facing second wave of Covid-19, Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) on Wednesday warned that the new wave could be worse than the first.
“Second waves of pandemics have been harsher,” said DAK President Dr Nisar ul Hassan.
“We have witnessed in the past how second wave of 1918 Spanish flu pandemic was deadlier than the first one. The first wave occurred in the spring which was relatively mild. A far deadlier second wave erupted in the fall months which infected 500 million and killed 50 million people globally. Covid-19 is following the same suit.”
He said the second waves of coronavirus in United States and Europe were uniformly worse than the first. “Kashmir is currently under the grip of a second wave and the cases are rising and hospitalisations too, he said.
“And if countermeasures are not put in place, we could end up having a situation that could be worse than what we saw last year.”
This is because, he said, a vast majority of people in the valley are still susceptible to the virus and the virus will go where it is given room to run, and will find people who are vulnerable to infection.
“People have got pandemic fatigue. They are tired of restrictions, wearing masks, being away from family and friends, and increasingly fed up with the new normal routines. They have thrown caution to the wind,” he said.
He said many people don’t wear masks and don’t care for social distancing. “This behavior would facilitate transmission of the virus that could reignite an outbreak,” said Dr Nisar.
Another factor, he said, that could make the new wave worse is the emergence of new variants. “Some of the variants can make the virus more infectious, deadly, or even resistant to vaccines and treatment,” he said.
“We should not take much comfort from the fact that so far in the second wave, the incidents of severe cases and deaths are considerably lower than the first spike. The second wave is infecting young people in larger proportion than the first one. And, after a couple of weeks, many of them are likely to infect the elder members of their family and when that happens, serious illnesses and deaths will go up,” said Dr Nisar.
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