As this issue of your newspaper reaches you, the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic is upon us in India. The second wave started close on the heels of the first one petering out.

As the first wave petered out in early March, there was much hope that the pandemic was on its last legs and we would be free of the misery and back to our normal lives sooner rather than later. But suddenly, the number of cases, which had plummeted in end-February and early-March, started rising rapidly.

The government informed us that corona virus mutations had been found in Mumbai, Delhi and other cities that had immuno escape and were much more infective. The number of cases kept rising in March. The number of corona deaths also increased, but not as rapidly as the increase in cases. This indicated that the second wave was driven by a mutation of the coronavirus that spreads much faster but is not as huge a killer as the earlier strain of the coronavirus.

The second wave is still to reach its peak and is still on the rise. It is still to be seen how it will pan out.

The government has taken very serious note of the second wave and has instructed the states and union territories to be vigilant as this situation has the potential to swamp out healthcare infrastructure. That means a health emergency.

Hopefully, the second wave will be much smaller than the first wave of coronavirus in India and will exact a much smaller cost in terms of fatalities and hospital admissions, being milder.

Of course, the experience of the first wave has prepared our healthcare system to tackle the emerging situation. Also, the fear of coronavirus is not as much as it was one year ago, when many considered a corona positive report to be a death sentence and patients started wondering if they had drawn up a proper will or not.

Also, now the protocols are in place, hospitals are better equipped, medications are available, Covid- appropriate behaviour is known and understood and the system is better equipped to handle the second wave.

It is said that a virus becomes less dangerous with every subsequent mutation, but this can not be said with certainty. It can also become more dangerous with mutation. Blissfully, the antibodies that crores of people in India have developed through having contracted symptomatic or asymptomatic corona, or by getting vaccinated, has created a certain level of immunity in the general population. If the virus is mutating, so is our population better prepared with antibodies and immune response.

It is being said that the end of the coronavirus, given its penchant for mutation, will not come in one go. The virus may keep generating smaller and smaller waves of patients, till it dies out. This may take several waves, each one of a smaller magnitude than the previous one, over a period of more than one more year.

What can we do in such a situation where the coronavirus is simply refusing to go away in a hurry? We have to do more of the things that we have been doing over the past one year. Washing hands, wearing masks, having physical distance from others, avoiding crowded places, boosting our immunity are all things that must continue. Vaccination is a great help in saving us from getting killed or hospitalized in case we do get corona, despite all precautions.

The second wave of corona across India tells us that our affair with corona is going to be a long drawn one. We have to live with it for many more months. However, the fear factor is no longer there, for, we now know a lot more about our enemy.

Precautions have to continue as we go about our life. There is no room for complacency.