The 2nd wave of Covid is as real as you and me! Let's look at the shield to protect ourselves!

New Delhi [India], April 19 (ANI/SRV Media): Corona is back, but it is not the same we dealt with, last year. It's back, in a new avatar and has engaged on a full fledged attack with us. This time it has learnt our tactics and our weaknesses.
Covid 19 is presenting with an entirely new set of symptoms but with the same lethality so much so that we are reliving the history of the past year. When it had presented us with fever and breathlessness, at least people made an effort to show up to tertiary hospital care and avail medical treatment at earlier stages. But with the new corona wave of 2021 and the new strains, it is sneaky, thereby, engaging in a guerrilla warfare, it is presenting late while having infected the victim to a lethal level.
While the usual symptoms of headache, sore throat, cough and fever disappear, the new symptoms of loose stools, conjunctivitis, discoloration of fingers and toes, skin rashes along with the loss of smell, taste and cough prevails. There is a rapid progression of the disease rather than its first time giving the doctors little to no time in having to manage patients acutely.
With that being said, with a country and a population density as much as ours, we are seriously underpowered and most of the doctors are at the risk of burnout and depression, having had to isolate themselves for week after week of duty for the past 10 months. Moreover, now there is a reality of having to take that same effort forward for the upcoming few months.
And the worst part is that most of these doctor's haven't seen their parents' spouses or kids and weren't even able to visit deceased relatives because they have been serving the Covid patients tirelessly. There is a crisis shortage in the doctors working in the covid and with the additional burden of all house surgeons having left this march.
The teary eyed medical community is looking forward to the utmost cooperation from the public so that all of us survive and live to see the future which now seems so blurry. But thanks to science and scientists and the relentless efforts of humans and our perseverance, we now have a weapon and a shield. The weapon is the studies and experience we have garnered in managing the Covid of 2019 and the shield is the vaccine. Relentless efforts of our doctors and scientists have yielded us a vaccine which potentially gives us protection against the atrocities of Corona.
But the concerns of the doctors is that with a new doubly mutated virus, the rate of infectivity has increased and hence the rate of spread has amplified. Even though the mortality hasn't increased from the past, more infectivity means there is a plausible situation where we might witness a higher number of deaths.
The vaccine has granted us one thing, even if there is not a complete protection against a reinfection after vaccination. The rate of mortality has gone down significantly in the vaccinated population. It's like our BCG vaccine, India has been vaccinating it's whole population against TB, even though still we are affected by fresh cases of tuberculosis, the mortality of it has toned down to humongous levels. Likewise our vaccine has shown promising results in preventing and controlling the Covid 19 disease.
The most effective way of fighting against this disease is practicing safe social practices. Face masks, social distancing, avoiding crowded and public places, limiting our outdoor needs to the bare minimum. This should be used by our people as an opportunity to have a journey of inwards and take a look actively inside of us rather than constant complaints of not being able to go out.
The second wave is here and it is as real as you and me are. Let's all stay indoors today, together, so we might all have a day outdoors tomorrow, together.
Dr A Mohamed Hakkim, Emergency Physician, Tiruchirappalli, TamilNadu - India
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