The deadly coronavirus whose first case was reported in the city of Wuhan, China, continues to grow at an alarming rate across the globe. According to WHO, the total coronavirus cases in the world now stand at 15.7 million. And almost 640,000 people have succumbed to deaths. These numbers are absolutely nerve wracking.
Our healthcare professionals and police officials are maintaining their sangfroid, and working endlessly to heal people and spread awareness about the same. Furthermore, the government is hustling day and night to come up with strategies to prevent further spread of the coronavirus. WHO has given permission to seven coronavirus vaccine candidates out of 110, to begin with human trials. And out of these seven, three of the vaccines have made it to the Phase-III of the human trials.
But even after fast tracking the trial procedures for the coronavirus vaccines, WHO claims that it will take at least another year for the vaccines to be declared safe. Furthermore, WHO suggests that we should not rely on the vaccines to provide us with the ultimate immunity against the coronavirus. This is because the antibody levels against the coronavirus plummet in the bloodstream after two or three months.
Therefore, our only weapon against this deadly virus is ‘social distancing.’ And it’s important to focus on social distancing now more than ever as the coronavirus cases are breaking records everyday. In his latest conference, the WHO Director-general, Tedros Adhanom, underscored the death of children due to the coronavirus in Texas, USA. Majority of these children were under one year of age. WHO says that this raises concerns especially for a country like India where there are 15 million children under the age of one year.
Taking notice of the situation, the WHO has issued a warning to India. Currently, there’s a new mutated form of the coronavirus at loose which particularly infects children and is lethal too. There are more than 10 Crore children between the ages of 1-10 in India. If this new form of the coronavirus starts spreading among children in India, then WHO estimates that approximately 50 lakh children will die.
Taking cognizance of WHO’s warning, the Indian government is planning to initiate further steps to strengthen the healthcare system of the country. We are sanguine about the abilities of the government and all the corona warriors working on the frontline. We all come out of this battle stronger and wiser.
