'If the government does its job of vaccinating all the population with the booster dose, and also monitoring the virus, and we do our job of wearing a mask and avoiding crowded places, we will be free of this virus in a few months.' time.'
'Since the Covid virus has a tendency to mutate, we can continue to expect new variants of the virus to emerge and keep circulating and recirculating in the communities.'
'We have to ensure the European situation does not occur in India and we don't see a spread like theirs.'
'Unless we see four weeks of low and stable numbers with only minor fluctuations, we cannot call the valley as endemic just as yet'
While companies have not launched too many products in rural areas of late, easy financing has helped push up demand.
The pandemic has forced us to reflect and re-evaluate our old habits and perceptions, says Anamika Sengupta.
The new malaria vaccine (RTS.S/ AS01, tentatively brand-named Mosquirix) is the very first one to offer immunity against a parasite -- specifically the plasmodium falciparum parasite, which is the deadliest of the five parasites that cause malaria.
'What prevents infection are masks, physical distancing and good ventilation.'
'And they are going to be milder because we are dealing with the vaccinated and are much richer in terms of the immune response in the population.'
The study also shows that levels of these antibodies that are able to recognise and fight the virus are lower with increasing age, and that levels decline over time, providing additional evidence in support of plans to deliver a booster dose to vulnerable people.
The researchers believe their findings provide a blueprint for a second-generation, universal vaccine that could prevent infection from current and future SARS-CoV-2 variants, including Omicron.
Experts in Singapore, which is seeing a surge in Omicron cases, have warned that the new and supposedly more contagious variant is likely to replace Delta over the coming weeks as the dominant global variant, with the virus being fitter and having a reproductive advantage.
A new sub-lineage BA.2.75 of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has been detected in countries like India and the World Health Organisation is following this, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Though Covid cases are rising in Delhi and its satellite towns, the focus should be on hospital admissions that have remained the same or changed just marginally, say several scientists, underscoring that the uptick is not an indication of a fourth wave in the country at this point.
"Omicron has been detected in all countries where we have good sequencing and it's likely to be in all countries around the world. It is quickly, in terms of its circulation, overtaking Delta. And so Omicron is becoming the dominant variant that is being detected," Kerkhove said during a virtual questions and answers session.
A third dose of COVID-19 vaccine can provide up to 88 per cent protection against hospitalisation from infection by the Omicron variant of coronavirus, according to early results from studies conducted in the UK.
'All actions for COVID-19 should be the same as for other routine health conditions.' 'There is no need to report the matter in the media all the time; not on front page please.'
The endemic stage is when a population learns to live with a virus.
Results from early-phase non-randomised vaccine trials in a total of 76 people show that two formulations of the vaccine have a good safety profile detected over 42 days, and induce antibody responses in all participants within 21 days.
If the pandemic persists, at least a portion of the blame should go to greed and nationalism that got in the way of the world acting together, notes Prosenjit Datta.
The COVID-19 vaccines can be "tweaked" to provide protection against new variants of the virus, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, Director Dr Randeep Guleria said.
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AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, as the trial sponsor, said that they cannot disclose further medical information but confirmed that independent investigations concluded that the trials were safe to restart.
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If the vaccine is safe and shows a promising immune response in humans, then larger trials would be planned for later in the year.
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A back of the envelope calculation shows that India has roughly over 680 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines consisting primarily of Covishield doses.
'A good 30 per cent of people will still get infected after getting the Covishield vaccine.'
Scientists have identified antibodies that neutralise Omicron and other variants of coronavirus by targeting areas that remain essentially unchanged as the virus mutates.
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A second wave of Covid driven by the Delta variant engulfed the country in May-June bringing the health system to its knees and leaving people gasping for help.
A steady decline in new COVID-19 cases has been recorded in India for the last 20 days, with 24 states witnessing a dip in active cases since the last week, the Union health ministry said.
'Mortality or hospitalisation has not increased in South Africa because of the new variant.' 'There is nothing to show so far that it is more infectious.' 'I am of the opinion that at the moment, there is no reason to panic.'
Backing the 12-16 weeks gap between the two doses of Covishield in the country, the chief investigator of the AstraZeneca vaccine clinical trials on Friday said that the level of protection provided by one dose of the preventive significantly increases in the second and third months after the jab.
Most of those who tested positive either recently arrived from African countries or were in contact with such people.
The move came soon after Belgium confirmed a case of the B.1.1.529 variant in someone who had travelled back from Egypt earlier this month, with the European Union (EU) member states agreeing to a snap travel ban on seven African nations.
More than 200 million Pfizer doses have been administered in the US, and hundreds of millions more worldwide, since December.
The UK's health authorities have confirmed that a new and "most significant" variant of COVID-19 is officially under investigation in the country as the government on Friday added six countries to its travel ban red list from southern Africa, where B.1.1.529 strain was first identified.
The data gaps are inhibiting sound decisions. We need to know seroprevalence, infection, and vaccination rates. This is required in 200 cities of India, every week, suggests Ajay Shah.
'The pandemic ends only when 70 per cent of the world is vaccinated with two doses.'
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