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New Delhi, May 23: The nationwide lockdown will no longer help India in its fight against COVID-19, and in its place community-driven containment, isolation and quarantine strategies have to be brought into play, leading virologist Shahid Jameel said.

The recipient of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology also stressed that testing should be carried out vigorously to identify coronavirus hotspots and isolate those areas.

"Our current testing rate at 1,744 tests per million population is one of the lowest in the world. We should deploy both antibody tests and confirmatory PCR tests. This will tell us about pockets of ongoing infection and past (recovered) infection. This will provide data to open up gradually and let economic activity resume," Jameel told PTI in an interview.

He stressed that testing has to be dynamic to continuously monitor red, orange and green zones and change these based on that data.

About community transmission of COVID-19 in India, Jameel said the country reached that stage long ago.

"We reached community transmission a long time ago. It's just that the health authorities are not admitting it. Even ICMR's own study of SARI (severe acute respiratory illness) showed that about 40 per cent of those who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 did not have any history of overseas travel or contact to a known case. If this is not community transmission, then what is?" he posed.

Lockdown bought India time in its fight against coronavirus, but continuing it is unlikely to yield any further dividend, Jameel said.

"Instead, community-driven local lockdowns, isolations and quarantines have to come into play. Building trust is most important so that people follow rules. A public health problem cannot be dealt with as a law-and-order problem."

The nationwide lockdown, initially imposed from March 25 to April 14, has been extended thrice and will continue at least till May 31. The virus has claimed 3,720 lives and infected over 1.25 lakh people in the country so far.

Jameel has expertise in the fields of molecular biology, infectious diseases, and biotechnology. He is the CEO of Wellcome Trust/Department of Biotechnology's India Alliance and is best known for extensive research in Hepatitis E virus and HIV.

He said COVID-19 will eventually be controlled through herd immunity, which is acquired in two ways – when a sufficient fraction of the population gets infected and recovers, and with vaccination.

"It is estimated that for SARS-CoV-2 at least 60 per cent of the population would have to be infected and recovered, or vaccinated. This will happen over the course of the next few years," Jameel said.

Herd immunity is reached when the majority of a population becomes immune to an infectious disease, either because they have become infected and recovered, or through vaccination. When that happens, the disease is less likely to spread to people who aren't immune, because there just aren't enough infectious carriers.

"India has 1.38 billion people, a population density of about 400/sq km and a healthcare system ranked at 143 in the world. If we allow 60 per cent people to get infected quickly in the hopes of herd immunity, that would mean 830 million infections," Jameel said.

"If 15 per cent need hospitalization that means about 125 million isolation beds (we have 0.3 million). If five per cent need oxygen and ventilatory support, this amounts to about 42 million oxygen support and ICU beds; we have 0.1 million oxygen support beds and 34,000 ICU beds. This would overwhelm the healthcare system causing mayhem," he said.

Jameel said if the population level mortality is 0.5 per cent that would mean 40 lakh deaths. "Are we prepared to pay this price for herd immunity in the short term? Clearly not," he said.

He said it is unlikely that a vaccine would be available by the end of the year.

"Even then, we don't know yet how long it would give protection – weeks, months, one year, a few years? I don't think we will return to pre-coronavirus days for at least the next 3-5 years. This is also a chance to evaluate if we want to return to those unsustainable, environment-damaging ways. COVID-19 is a timely warning to reform our way of living," he said.

Jameel said it is hard to predict but plausible that COVID-19 would return in second or third wave.

"Later waves come when we don't understand the disease and become lax. A comparison to Spanish Flu is not entirely valid because in 1918 no one knew what caused it. No one had seen a virus till the mid-1930s as the electron microscope needed to view those was invented in 1931," he said.

"Today we know a lot more about the pathogen, its genetic makeup, how it transmits and how to prevent it. We need to be sensible and follow expert advice," he said.

If there is any scientific evidence linking deforestation, rapid urbanisation, climate change with pandemics like COVID-19, he said zoonotic viruses -- those that jump from animals to humans -- happen so when wild animal–human contacts increase.

"Deforestation destroys animal habitats bringing them closer to humans. When you cut forests, bats come to roost on trees closer to human habitations. Their viruses in secretions/stool get transmitted to domestic animals and on to humans. This happened clearly with Nipah virus outbreak in Malaysia in 1997-98 from fruit bats to pigs to humans," he said.

"COVID-19 possibly arose in wet animal markets due to dietary habits that bring all kinds of live and dead wild animals in close contact with humans," Jameel added.

New Delhi, Feb 6: Unemployment rate in the country as per a new survey was 6.1 per cent in 2017-18, the government informed Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

Minister of State for Labour Santosh Gangwar said the government is conducting a new Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) with new parameters and bigger sample size, and its results cannot be compared with previous surveys in this regard.

"As per the new Periodic Labour Force Survey being conducted by the government, the labour force participation is 36.9 per cent and the rate of unemployment for 2017-18 is 6.1 per cent," he said.

Replying to supplementaries during the Question Hour, the minister said the report of this survey is very different than the surveys conducted in previous years.

This survey is not comparable to previous surveys, he said, adding it was an attempt to provide authentic data with the new survey conducted through the Ministry of Statistics.

"We are focusing on infrastructure development and ease of doing business and India's position in the world has improved. India has improved its position to 63rd rank now in 2019 against 196 in previous years," he said.

"Our government is very conscious of creating employment opportunities and is running such programme which generates employment.

"The way our government is functioning, employment opportunities are being created and the youths are getting jobs also," the minister said.

Gangwar said the government has stopped the previous survey as the sample size was low and an attempt is being made to improve the data by adding various parameters and provide more authentic data.

The minister said it will take time for collection of data as households have to be visited on the ground for authentic data collection in rural areas also.

Kolkata, Jan 12: Strongly defending the new citizenship law, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday the dispute that has arisen over it has made the world aware of persecution of religious minorities in Pakistan.

He, however, deplored that a section of the youth is being “misguided” over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which is aimed at giving and not taking away anybody's citizenship rights.

“CAA is not about taking away citizenship, it is about giving citizenship. Today, on National Youth Day, I would like to tell this to the youngsters of India, West Bengal, North East that this is not an overnight law for giving citizenship.

“We must all know that any person of any religion from any country of the world who believes in India and its Constitution can apply for Indian citizenship through due process. There's no problem in that,” he told a gathering at Belur Math, the headquarters of Ramkrishna Mission.

Modi said even Mahatma Gandhi had favoured Indian citizenship to those fleeing religious persecution and that his government has only delivered on the wishes of the freedom fighters.

Referring to anti-CAA protests in the North-East, Modi vowed to protect the distinct identity and culture of the people of the region, and asserted the new law will not hurt their interests.

“We've only done what Mahatma Gandhi had said decades ago. Should we send these refugees back to die? Are they our responsibility or not? Should we make them our citizens or not?” he said, evoking a thunderous applause by the gathering.

Modi said some people with political interests are deliberately spreading rumours about the new citizenship law, despite “complete clarity” over the CAA.

“Our initiative to amend the citizenship act has created a dispute. It is the result of our initiative that Pakistan will now have to answer why they have been persecuting minorities for the last 70 years. Human rights have been demolished in Pakistan,” he said.

Seeking to assuage the concerns of the people of the North-East, Modi called the region “our pride”. “Their culture, traditions and demography remains untouched by this amended law,” he said.

He said the citizenship law was only “changed a little” for those who were ill-treated in Pakisan after Partition.

“They were having a bitter time living there. Women were in danger of losing their pride,” he said.

“Young people have understood the whole thing but those who want to indulge in politics over it will not,” he said.

Modi said five years ago, there was disappointment among the youth of the country, but the situation has changed now.

“Not just India, the entire world has a lot of expectations from the youth of the country. The youth are not afraid of challenges....they challenge the challenges,” he said at the Belur Math, the abode of Swami Vivekananda for several years until his death in 1902, aged 39 years.

Modi, an ardent devotee of Vivekananda, spent the night at the Math.

He has a long association with the Ramkrishna Mission order founded by Vivekananda in 1897. Inspired by the teachings of Vivekananda, Modi had arrived at the Mission Ashram in Gujarat's Rajkot and expressed desire to join the order.

Swami Atmasthananda, who later went on to become the 15th president of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission, then headed the Rajkot branch and had advised him that sanyas was not for him and that he should work among people.

During those days, Modi used to regularly meet Atmasthananda and sought his spiritual guidance.

Although Modi went back after spending some time there his the relationship with Swami Atmasthananda and the Ramkrishna Mission continued.

Whenever Modi used to visit Kolkata, even during his days as Gujarat chief minister, he would travel to the Math.

In 2013, during his Kolkata visit, he had gone to Belur and sought the blessings from Atmasthananda.

He had in 2015 called on ailing Swami Atmasthananda at Ramakrishna Mission Seva Pratisthan, a hospital run by the Mission in south Kolkata and enquired about his health.

After Atmasthananda's death in 2017, Prime Minister Modi had termed it as a “personal loss”.

On Sunday, the prime minister paid tributes to Swami Vivekananda on his birth anniversary, which is celebrated as the National Youth Day, and spent some time in the spiritual leader's room in quietude.