‘Second wave helped by politicians, who trivialised the value of masks’

Last Friday almost a year into the pandemic the US Centers for Disease Control CDC finally changed its guidance to acknowledge that SARSCoV2 the virus that causes Covid19 can be transmitted through air This new language is a significant change from the agencyrsquos previous position which stated that the virus only spread through ldquoclose contactrdquo and was not airborneIn the past scientists and epidemiologists have repeatedly warned about the need for greater acknowledgement of the role of the airborne spread of Covid19 in order to help governments to implement more effective control measuresIn July 2020 nearly 239 scientists from 32 countries in an open letter published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases had even highlighted that the threat of the virus lingering in the air was being underplayed by the World Health Organisation WHO Dr T Jacob JohnFor India which is currently battling the second wave and is the worsthit country in the world having this knowledge beforehand could have stemmed the spread of the infection significantly says Dr T Jacob John leading virologist and former professor at the Christian Medical College Vellore ldquoWhat is new is not merely our understanding of the way transmission occurs but mainly the biology of the virusrdquo he saysAlso Read Ghar pe raho swasth rahoEdited excerpts from the interviewHow important is this developmentmdashthe virus being an airborne threatmdashfor the scientific and research community in understanding itI would not use the categorical statement of ldquoairborne threatrdquo for Covid19 In fact there is very little new in the CDC Guidelines of May 7 2021 If A is infected and B stands at three or five feet and gets infected the medium between them is air alone so the infection was always transmitted ldquothroughrdquo air The usual limit of safe distance is said to be six feet or two metresIf the two are separated by eight feet but the two stay where they are for more than say 15 minutes then the probability of some virus particles in the air inhaled by B increases from zero to a small degree Now the distance and time dimensions come into playIf they are in closed doors without ventilation and if there were more people and among them there were more than one infected persons then some virus can float in the air and infect persons even at distances of more than eight feetThe third factor is virus concentration in the airmdashmore viruses being added to the air that is not getting exchanged from outside since the hall is not well ventilated Here chances of infection in uninfected people increases In the above two examples the virus is ldquoairbornerdquo The new variant matters too Even if one person in the room was integrated and she expels large amounts of virus mdashbecause of high virus load which is the case with the new B1617 variant then airborne transmission is more likely now than it was for the earlier D614G variant Would you say that this new understanding of the way the transmission occurs would also drastically change the way we fight or prevent the infectionThis new information will definitely help us modify our preventive behaviour and interventions First of all maskwearing is our best preventive measure one hundred per cent people must wear masks What happened to the discipline of masks Who destroyed that behaviour that was picking up nicely in India Whoever was responsible to teach people by words and deeds that masks were not important is guilty of contributing to the second wave Remember vaccines will protect against disease but masks will protect you against getting the infection in the first place Masks slow down the spread of infection The second wave was helped by political leaders who trivialised the value of masks Next crowding the airborne risk of transmission is to be mitigated by disallowing crowds particularly with variants and airborne transmission becoming a reality Whoever flouted that principle on large scale whoever failed to provide data and advice whoever took huge risks for huge populations are collectively guilty of ldquounintentional mass homiciderdquo by ldquopublic health negligencerdquo like medical negligence for individualsThe new information researchers have shared could have significant implications for indoor environments and workplaces in particular Why is that soItrsquos physics Pollutantsmdashvisible or smellablemdashor unseen viruses stay longer in air in closed environmentsDo you feel that Indiarsquos devastating second wave could have been contained if this information would have come to us earlier especially with cities like Mumbai opening up its public transport earlier this yearYes indeed The change was heralded by a shift from the D614G variant that predominated the first wave during 2020 which was slowly getting replaced by fasterspreading variants in December 2020 and onwards into 2021 If INSACOG Indian SARSCoV2 Genome Sequencing Consortia virologists were required to analyse genomically 5 per cent of all RTPCR positive specimens from December 2020 epidemiologists would have been warned about the four to five variants that had the potential to spread fast in India and we would not have let our guard down as we did from January 2021 As we sow so we reapDonald Milton an aerosol scientist at the University of Maryland in an interview to the New York Times shared that wersquod probably need better guidelines for keeping workplaces and other indoor environments safe and also focus on good respirators and not just masks for people like for bus drivers ldquowho have to be close to other people for long periods of timerdquo Your thoughtsWhere are the Indian scientists advising the government of India on such matters Why not have all such people vaccinated on priority with two doses and their immunity checked and certifiedDo you think itrsquos the more infectious variant in India and the world that compelled the need to change the CDC guidanceYes I use the word variantsmdashmore infectious variants not strain I feel the virus has remained as one strain so far