Kejriwal urges Centre to suspend air services with Singapore, priortise vaccine options for children over new COVID strain

Amid concerns of a third wave of COVID-19 in the country, which according to many heath experts is likely to target children, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday said a new COVID variant detected in Singapore is said to be deadly for children and may bring in third wave in the country.

In this regard, the Delhi Chief Minister has requested the Central government to immediately suspend air services with Singapore and to work out vaccination options for children on priority.

In a tweet today, Kejriwal said, "The new COVID variant in Singapore is being said to be extremely dangerous for children, in India it may come as a third wave. My appeal to the central government: 1. Air services with Singapore to be canceled with immediate effect2. Priority on vaccine options should be worked out for children too."
Earlier, the Principal Scientific Advisor to Centre K Vijay Raghavan had on May 5 said the "third phase" of the COVID-19 is inevitable.

Vijay Raghavan, while briefing the media over the COVID-19 situation in the country had said, "Variants are transmitted same as original strain. It does not have the properties of new kinds of transmission. It infects humans in a manner that makes it more transmissible as it gains entry, makes more copies and goes on, same as the original."

"A phase three is inevitable, given the higher levels of circulating virus but it is not clear on what time scale this phase three will occur. We should prepare for new waves," the PrincipalScientific Advisor had said.

On May 12, The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) has given a nod to Bharat Biotech's Covaxin for Phase 2 and 3 human clinical trials on children aged between two to eight years old.

Meanwhile, India's daily spike of coronavirus cases witnesses a dip with only 2,63,533 fresh infections recorded in the last 24 hours, the number of deaths due to COVID-19 continues to remain alarmingly high with 4,329 more fatalities, the highest toll in a single day since the pandemic began.

According to the Union Health Ministry, the country also saw a massive jump in the number of recoveries with 4,22,436 fresh discharges.

The cumulative caseload stands at 2,52,28,996, including 2,15,96,512 recoveries, 33,53,765 active cases and 2,78,719 deaths.