The entire world has been living in the shadows of the COVID-19 Novel Corona Virus for almost this entire year and the deadly virus has claimed millions of lives and infected hundreds of millions others. However, it was just recently that people began to breathe a sigh of relief that the Virus could finally be countered, as a number of companies which had been working on developing potential vaccines against COVID-19 had announced impressive efficacy rates against the Virus and a couple of them like the Pfizer vaccine candidate and very soon the Moderna vaccine candidate are looking to rollout soon. However, even before these vaccine candidates were applying for emergency authorisation, some European nations like Italy, Spain, France and a few others had announced a second nation-wide lockdown to control the spread of what they felt was a second wave of COVID-19!

Similarly, within India also, despite the overall infection spread coming down rapidly, some regions have recently been reporting a surge in the number of new COVID infections. Now, in what comes as a shocking news, it has come to light that a technical advisory committee consisting of experts, which has been advising the Karnataka government on handling the COVID situation, has given out a dire warning. The warning given by the committee states that if preventive measures are not undertaken immediately, there could be a second wave of COVID-19, in the state of Karnataka. The Committee's warning forecasts that this second wave might hit the state in January 2021. 

The technical committee of experts has also advised the Karnataka government to follow some preventive measures like implementing night curfew between December 26th and January 1st and a blanket ban on New Year celebrations across the state. These measures are said to minimise the impact on the state. A statement issued by the committee reportedly says, "An early recognition of the second wave of COVID-19 can be done by closely monitoring 7-day average growth rate and reproduction number (R0)." It also added that the inputs of an epidemic intelligence team should be made use of for early recognition of the state government and also maximise daily testing till the end of February, to the tune of 1 lakh RT-PCR tests every day. Some of the states which have seen recent surges in new daily COVID infections are Kerala, West Bengal, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Gujarat. The committee has also recommended that the entire healthcare system be kept in a state of readiness as it was when the peak of the COVID Pandemic, initially hit the nation. Stay tuned for updates...