India May Have Reached Covid Endemicity With Local—But Not Severe—Ups and Downs: Soumya Swaminathan https://youtu.be/fy3wZ7oe7Bk?t=88 Aug 24, 2021
In an interview that will re-assure a lot of people and to many sound like good news, the Chief Scientist of the World Health Organisation has said “India could have reached some sort of stage of endemicity” in terms of the overall Covid 19 situation. “That’s what seems to be happening,” said Dr. Soumya Swaminathan.” “It’s very feasible we may continue like this with a few local ups and downs” but they are unlikely to be severe and certainly not like the devastating second wave of April-may. The endemic stage is when a population learns to live with a virus. It’s very different from the epidemic stage when the virus overwhelms a population.
The latest 7 day average of daily cases is now under 32,000, a fall of 12% compared to the week before. The R No. is said to be 0.9. This is very different to earlier weeks when cases were plateauing at 40,000 a day and the R No had crossed 1.1.