NEW DELHI: China’s Covid surge could see as many as a million deaths if not more, is the sense in the medical community in India. In this conversation on The Gist, Dr. Shekhar Mande, former director general of the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research, warns that it looks like large segments of that country’s population lack hybrid immunity, because of successive lockdowns.
There are also, it appears, issues with China’s home grown vaccine, the fact that large segments of the elderly have not been inoculated and the authoritarian political and administrative structure that may hinder the free flow of information, leading to lack of transparency.
Dr. Mande says that as members of the medical fraternity and the scientific community, India would be more than willing to lend China a helping hand, whether in terms of vaccine supply or in terms of dealing with large and diverse populations.
