COVID- A tale of two worlds

COVID- A tale of two worlds

(Words – 678; reading time 3-4 minutes, Why should you read? The pandemic is not over and out, do not drop the guards)

While the western world is dealing with one of its worst phases of Covid – 19, the so-called Covid-2, several nations, including India, are almost calling the game is over. Let’s revisit and understand the pandemic’s delicate dynamics and the evolving mutant variants of the virus.

As of late January 2021, hospitals in London and its suburbs were out of any beds for admitting the patients infected with Covid. The modeling predicted one of the worst shutdowns in the history of the great kingdom. Boris Johnson, a nationalist and a populist by inkling (a Trump category leader) too, caved into the worst pandemic. My doctor colleagues from Kent are working almost continuous long hour shifts (18 hours at a stretch). Elsewhere in the UK, the scenario was no different.

Brazil has just surpassed India as the second-worst country after the US to be affected by the virus. Europe, with its defining economies, is jettisoned with the virus. France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and all the Scandinavian countries are on the highest alert, with restricted and severely clamped down inbound and internal traffic, almost reducing the countries to secluded pockets.

Here in the US, of course, statistics are grim, the economy has bounced back a little, but guards are not down, like in India and its peninsula. A quick view of the hospital bed availability for most regions, states, and cities are still red, not to mention LA and its suburbs, which is chronically deprived of beds for almost a few months.

Let us unfold the mysterious virus.

While the simmering stories in the western world are true, it is equally true and a reality that life in India (and the peninsular countries) has bounced back to normalcy.

What can be the reason?
Yes, its is an existential dilemma, that has created a completely divided world with distinct response and behavior to the virus.

Continuous mutation and evolution of the virus
While we know all the mutations such as B 1.1.7, D614G, N501, and its variants, and several subspecies of the evolving new generation-of the virus, what is least understood is that avowed variant that is circulating in those countries where life has bounced back to normalcy. Let’s call this hypothetical mystic variant “Benign Covid-21” (I just coined this word, so no Google search will yield any additional documents). This haplotype, if widely circulating in these populations, maybe an answer to the nature mitigation of the virus. Ultimately, as my friend and a noted prominent vaccine expert Dr. Anand Kawade said, the virus has to live amicably with its hosts. It, too, has to find a symbiotic relationship to survive. This metaphysical aspect cannot be discounted though it needs scientific validation.

Should we drop our guards?
It is too early to say if those in India (and countries with a similar pattern of Benign Covid -21, should drop their guards. One thing is clear, global lockdowns (and lock-jams) are definitely not an answer. At the outset of the pandemic, i had called out the hypothesis if the degree of separation concept, retrospectively, in hindsight, it seems obvious to lean and review that model. Summarily, the degree of separation talks about the interaction amongst the population and not the distance that influences the outcome of the disease dynamics during the covid pandemic. Thus, putting entire cities, regions, and states in mass lockdown is not a pragmatic idea.

Breaking the transmission cycle by interrupting these traversals of the virus is critical. Travel restrictions, strict screening and surveillance, and mass vaccination and precautions are all CRITICAL to the successful CONTROL of COVID. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and follow all the right protection.

Shashank Heda, MD
Dallas, Texas
Founder and Chief Executive,
COVIDRxExchange, a global nonprofit initiative for disseminating the expertise and insight for doctors in the care of COVID)

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