After months of a continual decline in new COVID-19 cases, India had a slight but disturbing rise last week, going from 11,600 new cases on February 16 to 14,200 cases on February 21. The modest outbreak is occurring in five states, led by the western state of Maharashtra, where slums and crowded living conditions are a problem. Dr. Shahshank Joshi, a member of the state’s Covid Task Force, reported to NDTV that there are 240 new strains that have surfaced across India, and it is suspected that last week’s problem may indicate that some of those strains are showing up.
The head of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Dr. Randeep Guleria, also alluded to the new strains in explaining the scary problem — the “immune escape mechanism” problem. If the process of rolling out the vaccines occurs too slowly, and the viruses have too sufficient an opportunity to mutate, then some mutant viruses are more likely to adapt to the semi-vaccinated environment. Basically, in such a situation, the viruses are learning faster than the vaccines are being applied.
