{"id":111283,"date":"2021-06-09T11:10:31","date_gmt":"2021-06-09T05:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=111283"},"modified":"2021-06-09T11:10:31","modified_gmt":"2021-06-09T05:40:31","slug":"mitigating-the-third-wave-requires-a-focus-on-dots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/mitigating-the-third-wave-requires-a-focus-on-dots\/","title":{"rendered":"Mitigating the third wave requires a focus on DOTS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><b>Synopsis<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India is witnessing a softening of the second wave. Nonetheless, the anticipation of the 3rd wave is quite high. Therefore, it is imperative for India to focus on reducing the reproduction number (R). This in turn calls for focusing on its determinants i.e. DOTS for Mitigating the third wave<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>Background<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India witnessed a brutal impact of the second wave of the pandemic in May 2021, with cases crossing the 4 lakh mark in one day.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The situation has now eased and the number of cases has come down below the 1.5 lakh mark. The second wave appears to be abating due to a reduced reproduction number.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><b>About Reproduction number (R):<\/b><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It refers to the <strong>average number of new infections arising from one infected individual<\/strong>.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">R greater than 1 implies that infected individuals infect more than one person on average, and we observe increasing cases. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When it is less than 1, cases are declining.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is dependent on Four Factors, summarised by the acronym DOTS:\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Duration<\/strong> a person is infectious\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Opportunities<\/strong> for infected individuals to spread the infection to others;\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the probability of <strong>Transmission<\/strong> of infection if given an opportunity\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the average <strong>Susceptibility<\/strong> of a population or subpopulation\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><b>What led R to increase earlier this year resulting in a second wave?<\/b><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Susceptibility<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: It was quite high at the start of the year. This is evident from the results from a national seroprevalence survey done in December 2020 and January 2021. They indicate roughly <strong>25% of the population had antibodies to the virus<\/strong> that causes COVID-19.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Further, <strong>less than 1% of the total population had received two doses<\/strong> of the vaccine till March 2021.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Opportunity for Transmission<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: By January 2020, people perceived that they had won the battle over the pandemic. They were eager to get back to life and work. Eventually, this increased the social mixing and the occurrence of large gatherings that might have facilitated a second wave.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Probability of Transmission<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: A fall in <a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/how-covid-19-can-be-addressed-via-covid-19-appropriate-behaviour\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Covid-19 appropriate behaviour<\/a>\u00a0was witnessed in early 2021 like not wearing masks in public, not properly sanitizing oneself etc. Further new variants with higher transmissibility potential emerged.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For instance,\u00a0 B.1.617.2 (<a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/what-is-the-delta-variant-of-covid-19\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the delta variant<\/a>) is known to possess higher transmissibility potential, twice than the <a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/who-classifies-indian-variant-as-variant-of-concern\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Covid-19 variants circulating in 2020<\/a>. It has emerged as the dominant variant in India and UK during their second wave.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Duration of infectiousness<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: It may have enhanced with the emergence of new variants however more research is needed on this front.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0Read Also :-<span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/war-against-tuberculosis-in-india-an-overview\/\">War against tuberculosis in India: an overview\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Therefore, it is now imperative that <strong>we need to focus on DOTS for Mitigating the third wave<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>Suggestions for Mitigating the third wave:<\/b><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The government must build <\/span><b>well-designed <a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/icmrs-3rd-serological-survey-need-to-rethink-on-vaccination-strategy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">seroprevalence surveys<\/a><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to understand how much of the population remains susceptible and where they reside. These should accommodate the complexities of new variants and the occurrence of reinfections.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The focus should be on <strong>increased use of face masks and improved ventilation<\/strong> for reducing the transmission. The country can learn from <\/span><b>the Bangladesh model <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in which the distribution of free masks coupled with community monitors delivered positive results.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Temporary<\/strong><b style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> solutions like lockdowns and a ban on mass gatherings<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> should be used to focus on slowing the transmission rate.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The magnitude of the susceptible population can be brought down by substantially <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/universal-vaccination-in-india-challenges-and-way-forward-explained-pointwise\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>increasing the immunisation coverage<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Currently, only 3% of the population has received both doses.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The<\/span><b> isolation and quarantining guidelines should be revised periodically<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as per the changing duration of infectiousness.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/epaper.thehindu.com\/Home\/ShareArticle?OrgId=GQQ8L8M35.1&amp;imageview=0\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Hindu<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synopsis: India is witnessing a softening of the second wave. Nonetheless, the anticipation of the 3rd wave is quite high. Therefore, it is imperative for India to focus on reducing the reproduction number (R). This in turn calls for focusing on its determinants i.e. DOTS for Mitigating the third wave Background: India witnessed a brutal&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/mitigating-the-third-wave-requires-a-focus-on-dots\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Mitigating the third wave requires a focus on DOTS<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,1351,1310,9],"tags":[1289],"class_list":["post-111283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-daily-news","category-daily-news-updates","category-public","tag-soc_0","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704933940},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}