New Delhi: A day after India’s principal scientific advisor Dr K Vijay Raghavan predicted that wave three of the Covid-19 pandemic is inevitable in India, public health expert and director-general of Association of Health Care Providers (AHCPI) Dr. Giridhar Gyani on Thursday dismissed it.
“At a time when the country's entire health infrastructure and public health is in doldrums due to the current wave of Covid19, we can’t hail such a statement from a senior government official,” said Dr Gyani in an exclusive interview to ETV Bharat.
Dr. Gyani said that the statement made by Dr. Raghavan could be a strategy to “hide” the present crisis.
“We are witnessing more than 4 lakh cases in a day. There is a shortage of oxygen and hospital beds across India. What kind of crisis could the third wave bring?” said Dr Gyani.
“We are not able to deal with the present situation,” he added.
He said that in spite of the fact that India produces enough oxygen, “We were not able to deliver oxygen to the right places on time. There was no early coordination between road and transport, and all other concerned ministries. Better involvement of all the ministries for proper supply chain delivery was required.”
On Wednesday, principal scientific advisor Dr. Raghavan said that the third wave of Covid19 is inevitable in India. Although he said that the timing of the third wave could not be predicted, he appealed for maximum caution to deal with the coming situation.
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Dr. Gyani said that the current wave is infecting all categories and all age groups of people.
“With a huge spike in cases, several states in India have already become “states of concern”. It is clear that the current wave is reaching to the tier 2 and tier 3 cities and even to the places where there were a smaller number of cases…entire country is fighting against the havoc created by the second wave of the pandemic,” said Dr Gyani.
Referring to a projection made by the scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Kanpur and Hyderabad, Dr. Gyani said that once India records 5 lakh cases in a day, “it will be the beginning of the peak of the second wave.”
According to the IIT researchers who applied the Susceptible, Undetected, Tested (positive), and Removed Approach' (SUTRA) model to predict the current wave opined that active cases would go up further by over 10 lakh by mid-May.
Referring to the projections, Dr. Gyani said that after May 15, the present scenario may witness a decreasing trend.
As per health ministry data, India recorded 4,12,262 new cases and 3,980 deaths in the last 24 hours.
