India’s ‘R-Value’ Cause Of Concern: AIIMS Chief

Randeep Guleria says another covid wave unlikely

New Delhi: The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) chief Dr Randeep Guleria emphasised on the need for aggressive containment strategies in various parts of the country that are experiencing surge in COVID cases and said that India’s ‘R-Value’ is inching up, and it’s a cause of concern.

“Starting from .96, and going all the way up to 1, the rise in R-Value is a cause of concern. Simply put, this means that the chances of infection spreading from a person, who has Covid, to others have gone up. The areas which are witnessing this surge should bring in restrictions and employ ‘test, track, and treat’ strategy to break the chain of transmission,” Dr Guleria was quoted as saying by NDTV.

The R-Factor or number indicates the effective reproductive number of a deadly virus.

India reported 44,230 fresh infections on Friday, the highest single-day surge in the last three weeks. As many as 46 districts in the country have a positivity rate of more than 10 per cent, according to the government on Saturday.

Explaining the Delta variant threat in the Indian context, Dr Guleria said, “Measles or chicken pox used to have R factor of 8 or more, which means one person could infect eight others. That sort of suggests that this virus is highly infectious. We saw that in our second wave, because whole families were getting infected. This happens with chicken pox also. In a similar manner, when one person has Delta variant, the whole family is vulnerable.”

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