After the second wave of coronavirus infections, it is “inevitable” that India will also see a third wave, said Prof K Vijay Raghavan, the principal scientific advisor to the central government.

Addressing a press briefing on India’s Covid-19 situation, Prof Raghavan said while the third Covid-19 wave is inevitable in India, the time when it will occur and its scale is not certain at present.

In the wake of the changing nature of variants, we must be ready for the third wave, he said. “We can’t predict the timing, but it seems inevitable. We must prepare ourselves and be ready for it.”

Prof Raghavan said while vaccines are effective against variants, but the scientific community needs to keep working on vaccines and make changes accordingly.

“Why should we care about SARS-CoV-2 (the virus causing Covid-19) when we can potentially upgrade vaccines? It is only sometimes that variants can erode immunity so rapidly. We need to make a map of all possible changes that can happen in the virus Scientists are working to anticipate variants,” he said.