COVID-19 likely to become more manageable in 6 months: NCDC Director

New Delhi: The Director of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Wednesday (September 15, 2021) said that COVID-19 will start becoming endemic in the next six months in India. The NCDC top expert also mentioned that emergence of a new variant can't alone bring the third wave of infections. 

In an interview with NDTV, Sujeet Singh, the Director of NCDC said, "This pandemic has defied most of our predictions but in the next six months, we will approach endemic status." 

The NCDC Director said that COVID-19 becoming endemic would mean the infection becoming more manageable. He also added that this shift will also make things easier for the health infrastructure. 

"If the mortality and morbidity is under control, then we can manage the disease," Dr Singh said in the interview, adding that Kerala is also emerging from the COVID-19 crisis. 

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Additionally, NCDC Director stressed the need of getting the masses vaccinated while stating that the COVID-19 vaccination drive is the biggest protection against the virus. 

"75 crore people have been vaccinated. If vaccine effectiveness is 70 percent, then around 50 crore people in India have got immunity. A single dose gives 30-31% immunity. So the 30 crore people, who have received a single dose, are also immunised," he said.

Dr Singh also added that people are getting lax after getting vaccinated which should not be the case. He further went on to warn that everyone needs to follow COVID-appropriate behaviour. 

"Breakthrough infections are also because of the new variants. Scientists say within 70 to 100 days of vaccination the immunity level starts dropping," he explained.

Meanwhile, India on Wednesday saw a single-day rise of 27,176 new coronavirus infections taking the total tally to 3,33,16,755, while the death toll climbed to 4,43,497 with 284 fresh fatalities. With this, the country has recorded less than 50,000 daily cases for 80 consecutive days now.

According to the Union Health Ministry data, the active cases have declined to 3,51,087 and comprise 1.05 percent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 97.62 percent.

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