Future Living is with Covid 19 and its Variants

Omicron Impact on India has been mild and the disease severity was evaded due to vaccination. The road ahead for India is to continue its robust vaccination process, continuous research and genome sequencing and preparedness in healthcare systems to handle spikes and outburst of Covid 19 cases whenever it is noted in particular States.

Present peak of Omicron variant will fall by March 2022 and the road ahead is to develop multi-variant vaccine for future protection.

Healthcare experts, innovators and scientists at Virtual Webinar of Omicron Impact: The New Way of Living with Covid 19 variants give us fact-based insights cope and move forward with SARS-Cov 2 virus.

Dr. D. Nageshwar Reddy, Chairman, Asian Institute of Gastroenterology, Hyderabad -I think we have passed the major danger part and now we are going to have rapid downfall of this wave. March 2022 will be a better New Year for us. Even if future infections are recorded they would be more in the form of very mild infections. Huge physiological components for children and adults would be overcome once the infection gets milder. We have to rigorously go forward and we should not be cowed down by this virus.

Dr J A Jayalal, National President of Indian Medical Association – We are in a better position than any other country. Vaccination is one of the greatest tools for us to combat this disease. I must salute to all those who have contributed for the success in this invention and also the manufacturers of vaccine. We need to definitely put more effort into the research and changing the vaccination components. This will make us future ready and in a comfortable position to face the disease.

Dr Rakesh Mishra, Director, Tata Institute for Genetics and Society, India– We should not miss out on taking special measures of protection as we have been doing very well. Our strategies have to be different. We have to see that people are surely vaccinated. Now the priority has to be how we manage hospitals and continue with our research of genome sequencing if we see spikes in pockets across the country.

Symptoms are not mild because Omicron variant is kind. Symptoms are mild because we are protected with vaccination and our prior infection with Delta variant. We don’t need to panic, seeing the new variant emerging, though the number may be high but it will not have much impact if we contribute little by cooperating with the vaccination. Mask is a must and must never be given up in public domain as that is our first level of protection from the virus.

Dr Gayatri Kamineni, Chief operating officer, Kamineni Hospitals:

 Virus is not going anywhere; it is changing rapidly so we need to be very careful. The biggest vaccine for us is the mask. Let us go out and get treated for non-Covid 19 diseases. Trust your doctor and do not allow a planned medical or clinical procedure to become an emergency.

Our biggest concern are children from the poorer section of society who have not suffered with Covid 19 but the impact caused by Covid 19. The closing down of schools has exposed them to violence at home, lack of nutrition and also behavioural changes due to non-functioning of schools. The lower section of society are not those who can opt for digital learning and it is this non-clinical aspect that we must concentrate on. The need is to have Helplines for Children and provide them the therapies that they require.

Mental health of adults at home is very important for the mental health of the child to actually be stable.

Pranav Bajaj, Co-Founder of MeduLance – It’s very important to have a breakthrough in the innovation in healthcare because it always improves the accessibility and affordability of any service. We serviced about thousands of calls on a daily basis during the second wave of the pandemic in Delhi. We have to maintain the same protocols, for us every patient to be treated as a Covid suspect patient in every emergency. The pandemic did bring out the gaps but the way forward is to work in closing these gaps in admission to hospitals and insurance facilities.

Gourav Khurana , CEO, Gleneagles Global Hospitals, –

Communication and trust of your doctor is most important. People should not wait. The disease, Covid 19 or non-Covid 19 can be mild today but can be an emergency tomorrow. If you have some symptoms do not hide them from family also. Call your doctor and speak to them. Tele-health, E-ICU’s are now all available at a call in metro, tier II and III cities and we are reaching out to maximum people to provide medical care. Delaying your diagnosis and care leads to problems and do not consider it the right decision.

Dr P V Ramesh, Physician, Former Additional Secretary of Government to Andhra Pradesh –

The learning of last two years has been tremendous for the healthcare systems, government and also public sense of health discipline. The most important responsibility of the government is to vaccinate the people and we need to consider this very seriously. Secondly, data management is an important aspect of health care. Barring a few States of India, the data management is the need of the hour to understand SARS-Cov 2 virus. We must continue our research in Genomics and ensure that the surveillance continues even when we are out of the Covid 19 waves. There must be a uniform national account system for the pandemic.