Health Expert advises people to not be careless, says impact of COVID-19 'is down but not out'

By Shalini Bhardwaj
New Delhi [India], April 28 : With India recording more than 3,000 COVID-19 cases on Thursday, health expert has advised all not to let their guard down by being careless and said that the impact of COVID-19 is 'down but not out'.
In an exclusive interview to ANI, the Director of Tata Institute for Genetics and Society in Bangalore, Dr Rakesh Mishra warned that the impact of Coronavirus is down but not nullified and advised all to take precautions to curb the impact of the virus.
"It is important for all to take adequate precautions to curb the impact of the virus. It is observed that if the cases rise in an area, there is a chance that another variant exists," he said. "We should not be complacent at the moment. The Coronavirus is 'down but not out'. So, we should exercise all precautions including wearing a mask in public places, avoiding crowded places, etc. Don't be careless," he said.
The health expert added, "If you don't take care, there are chances that more people will get re-infected. Also, a new variant may come up and pose problems for all," Dr Mishra said.
He further said the number of cases being reported in India as of date is not worrisome.
"But need to strengthen environmental surveillance, COVID-19 testing mechanisms and genome sequencing methods. Breaching the 3000 caseload mark today is not really a number to worry about. By strengthening our environmental surveillance, we all can, without testing, know about what is the extent of infection and whether it's increasing or decreasing," the TIGS director said.
"We should do it like seawater surveillance or/and air surveillance. Experts shall carry out testing of the people certainly for those who come to hospitals with symptoms or if there is some suspicion of increasing cases in the area and so on. And along with this, we should also do very extensive genome surveillance so that we know whether a new variant has surfaced or the same variant is increasing the infections," Dr Mishra said.
"There is a less number of COVID-19 cases being reported as on date as compared to what was reported previously. But that doesn't mean that we have to keep our guard down. COVID-19 has not gone away yet and as long as COVID-19 is around, it may mutate into new variants. We all, thus, have to be very careful for the next few months," he explained.
India on Thursday witnessed an uptick in the number of COVID-19 cases, with 3,303 fresh cases in the last 24 hours, the union health ministry reported. There were 39 fatalities over the same period. On Wednesday 2,927 COVID-19 cases were reported from the country.