As India battles with the deadly coronavirus pandemic, a shocking report has come to the fore.
As per a report by Reuters, a panel of scientists set up by government, had alarmed the Indian officials in early March about a new and more contagious variant of Coronavirus taking hold in the country.
Five scientists who are a part of this forum have confirmed this. Despite warnings, four of the scientists said that the government did not seek to impose major restrictions to stop the spread.
Reportedly, the Indian Sars-CoV-2 genetics consortium or Insavog had issued the warning in March. One of the scientists, who happens to be the director of a research center in Northern India and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that it was conveyed to a top official, who reports directly to the Prime Minister.
INSACOG, which brings together 10 national laboratories capable of studying viruses variants, was set up as a forum of scientific advisers by the government in December, in order to detect genomic covid variants that might pose threat to public health.
Ajay Parida, director of the state-run Institute of Life Sciences and a member of the INSACOG informed Reuters that the researchers had first detected B.1.617, or the Indian variant of the virus in February.
Upon which, INSACOG shared its findings with the health ministry’s National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) before March 10. It warned the NCDC that infections could quickly rise in parts of the country. The findings were then passed on to the Indian health ministry, this person said. But the health ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Reuters report further said that around the time, INSACOG began to prepare a draft media statement for the health ministry. A version of that draft set out the forum’s findings that the new Indian variant had two significant mutations to the portion of the virus that attaches to human cells, and it had been traced in 15% to 20% of samples from Maharashtra, India’s worst-affected state.
The draft statement said that the mutations, called E484Q and L452R, were of “high concern.” It said “there is data of E484Q mutant viruses escaping highly neutralising antibodies in cultures, and there is data that L452R mutation was responsible for both increased transmissibility and immune escape,” which meant that mutated versions of the virus could more easily enter a human cell and counter a person’s immune response to it.
Further, it’s reported that although the ministry made the findings public, two weeks later on March 24, when it issued a statement to the media, it did not include the words “high concern”. It only stated that more problematic variants required the following measures already underway – increased testing and quarantine.
On being asked why the government did not respond more forcefully to the findings, Shahid Jameel, chair of the scientific advisory group of INSACOG, said he was concerned that authorities were not paying enough attention to the evidence as they set policy.
“Policy has to be based on evidence and not the other way around,” he said, also adding, “I am worried that science was not taken into account to drive policy. But I know where my jurisdiction stops. As scientists we provide the evidence, policymaking is the job of the government.”
The research centre director claimed that the draft media release was sent to the most senior bureaucrat in the country, Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, who reports directly to the Prime Minister.
The report mentions that Reuters could not determine whether the Insacog findings were passed on to Modi himself. Modi’s office did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
To be sure, some scientists say the surge was much larger than expected and the setback cannot be pinned on political leadership alone. “There is no point blaming the government,” Saumitra Das, director of the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, which is part of INSACOG, added.
Millions of people in India attended large political rallies and religious congregations in the past couple months, these masses also included prominent figures including the Prime Minister himself. It is an aftermath of this carelessness that India reported 3.92 lakh new Covid positive cases on Sunday and 3,689 deaths, the highest number of deaths in a day since the outbreak of the pandemic.