While India continues to reel under an already ferocious 2nd wave of Covid-19 leaving hospitals and people battering for resources, the Government’s principal scientific advisor has warned of a yet worse 3rd wave of the pandemic calling it “inevitable, given the rate at which the virus is circulating and mutating.”

“It is not clear on what time-scale this phase three will occur. But we should be prepared for a new wave. Previous infections and vaccines will cause adaptive pressure on the virus for new kinds of changes that try to escape. We should be prepared scientifically to take care of that.”, said K Vijay Raghavan, the principal scientific advisor to the Centre.

While new variants are transmitted in the same manner as the original strain, they infect humans in a manner that makes it more transmissible as it gains entry, makes more copies, and goes on, he said.

On a positive note, Raghavan added that vaccines were effective against the variants. “New variants will arise all over the world and in India too, but variants that increase transmission will likely plateau. Immune evasive variants and those which lower or increase disease severity will arise going ahead.”

Scientists in India and all over the world are working to anticipate these kinds of variants and act against them rapidly by issuing early warnings and developing modified tools.

Meanwhile, the Covid-19 variant first detected in India - B.1.617, is already under the lens of scientists and experts as to whether it could be the reason behind the sudden surge in cases in India.

It has been classified by scientists in the United Kingdom as a “variant under investigation” and has been partially blamed for the explosion of the number of cases in India.

Raghavan said that the extent of the current devastating wave of the pandemic in India was not predicted. On whether lockdown could be imposed as a way to control further spread of the virus, senior NITI Aayog Member VK Paul said, “If anything more is required then those options are always being discussed. There’s already a guideline to states to impose restrictions to suppress chain of transmission.”

Despite experts recommending the implementation of a lockdown in the country, the Centre has seemed wary of the idea supposedly due to the fear of economic fallout. Curbs have been imposed in various states but to little effect.

As per the WHO, India accounted for nearly half the cases reported worldwide last week, as COVID-19 mortalities in the nation rose by a record 3,780 during the past 24 hours.