‘COVID norms must to keep new dangerous variants away’

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People should continue wearing face masks and practice COVID appropriate behaviour of avoiding gatherings for a ‘long time’ to not give a chance for more virulent immune escape strains of SARS-CoV-2 to emerge, said director of Tata Institute of Genetics & Society (TIGS) and former director of CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) Rakesh Mishra on Thursday.

“Looks like we have an upper hand over the virus in most parts of the country due to natural infection induced sero-positivity with vaccines also helping. We should continue to try as much as we can not to give a chance for new dangerous variants to come in. It is not just about the governments. The society too, should contribute as if we keep getting infected, vaccines may not respond,” he warned.