1 virus variant can go berserk

CCMB chief says wearing a mask is the best protection against Coronavirus

The director of Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) has warned that there was always a chance of the Coronavirus causing Covid-19 mutating into something that current treatment protocols or vaccines may not be effective against.

“For the Coronavirus,” Dr Rakesh Mishra, the CCMB Director said, “Every person it infects is an experiment for it.”

He said: “When the virus enters a person, it can mutate. Most of such mutations are not dangerous, but there could be that one mutation in a million that can become something which cannot be controlled.”

It could develop abilities to escape detection, and if detected, turn untreatable, and become something vaccines are ineffective against, he added.

Dr Mishra, expressing serious concern over the near total absence of safety precautions among people, told Deccan Chronicle that wearing a face mask should be second nature now for everyone.

“It is like wearing a shirt when going out or a dress or a top. We do not go out bare-bodied. Masking should be like that,” he said. Adding, “Wearing a mask properly is the best protection against catching the disease along with maintaining physical distance and hand hygiene.”

“People have to realise that the virus is riding us. It can come from anywhere, can do anything,” he said.

Referring to the past research by CCMB scientists into the Coronavirus causing Covid-19, he recalled how they found out that the virus can linger in the air inside a restroom for up to two hours if an infected person coughs a few times.

It can spread through ordinary talking, even if an infected person who does not know he or she is infected and is talking on the phone nearby, or when an infected person laughs or speaks loudly as droplets are expelled during all these actions.

Humans also expel droplets while breathing which makes wearing a properly worn mask the vital equipment to prevent spread of the virus.