With new COVID-19 cases plummeting to below 50 per day and zero fatalities reported in a week, the fear factor has started disappearing among the people in the district and the normal buzz is returning to the streets.
Though the district had reported arrival of 50 passengers from London last week, none of them had tested positive to the new strain.
What actually boosted the public buoyancy is the belief that the so-called "new wave" is nothing but the "weakening or weakened" strains of the older virus. "I follow TV news and read newspapers daily. We learn that the new strain can spread six times faster than the original virus, but it has no vigour to kill us. Now, it’s more like a normal fever, cold or cough. When COVID-19 had struck us, it was like a death warrant. Now, it’s gone. Arrival of vaccines is round the corner. Earning a livelihood is important now rather than hiding to preserve lives," a 70-year-old worker at a cycle shop in Srikalahasti sums up the general public mood.
"We know the anti-bodies in us are enough to give us total protection from re-infection for six months to one year. By that time, we are surely getting vaccines," says Hari (40) of Thettu locality in Srikalahasti, whose four-member family tested positive in district in July.
Pulmonologist at the Government Hospital at Puttur Dr P. Amarnatha Reddy says it is a welcome sign that people are no longer panicky about the pandemic. "After all, we preached confidence and courage to fight the pandemic. But at the same time, over-confidence is dangerous. Caution and COVID-19 safety rules at least for the next few months are a must. At present, we do not exactly know the dynamics of the new strains. Now that it has entered India, we can only predict its further path of spreading and infection and corollary after the incubation period," Dr. Reddy adds.
