Altaf Hamid Rao.
MIRPUR (AJK), (Parliament Times) : With Indian Illegally occupied Jammu & Kashmir state facing second wave of Covid-19, Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) in the occupied State has warned that the new wave could be worse than the first, says a report reaching here Thursday from across the line of control (LoC).
As per the statement issued to the media in occupied Srinagar late Wednesday, “ongoing econd waves of pandemics have been harsher,” said DAK President and influenza expert Dr Nisar ul Hassan, the report said.
“We have witnessed in the past how second wave of 1918 Spanish flu pandemic was deadlier than the first one. The first wave occurred in the spring which was relatively mild. A far deadlier second wave erupted in the fall months which infected 500 million and killed 50 million people globally”, the DAK chief underlined.
“Covid-19 is following the same suit,” DAK President said.
“The second waves of corona virus in United States and Europe were uniformly worse than the first.”
“Kashmir is currently under the grip of a second wave and the cases are rising and hospitalizations too,” he said.
“And if countermeasures are not put in place, we could end up having a situation which could be worse than what we saw last year”, the seasoned medico warned.
“This is because vast majority of people in the valley are still susceptible to the virus and the virus will go where it is given room to run, and will find people who are vulnerable to infection,” Dr Nisar said.
“People have got pandemic fatigue. They are tired of restrictions, wearing masks, being away from family and friends, and increasingly fed up with the new normal routines”, he observed adding “They have thrown caution to the wind”.
“Since any people don’t wear masks and don’t care for social distancing, this irresponsible behavior would facilitate transmission of the virus that could reignite an outbreak,” said Dr Nisar.
“Another factor that could make the new wave worse is the emergence of new variants”, he said.
“Some of the variants can make the virus more infectious, deadly, or even resistant to vaccines and treatment,” he said.
“We should not take much comfort from the fact that so far in the second wave, the incidents of severe cases and deaths are considerably lower than the first spike. The ongoing wave is infecting young people in larger proportion than the first one. And, after a couple of weeks, many of them are likely to infect the elder members of their family and when that happens, serious illnesses and deaths will go up,” concluded Dr Nisar.
