WHO chief scientist, Dr Soumya Swaminathan on 6 August cautioned people against lowering their guard against the coronavirus and urged them to strictly follow COVID-appropriate protocols for another six months.

The WHO chief scientist said, "I know everybody is tired, everyone wants to meet their family, organise parties. But this is not the time to let down your guard. Let's be careful for another six months. By then, if the vaccination coverage is very high, then things should definitely start improving." The global health body's chief scientist also said that there is no scientific evidence for anxiety that the third wave of coronavirus will target children.

While speaking to ANI here, Dr Swaminathan said, "The ICMR serosurvey showed that 65 per cent of children and adults have been infected and have developed antibodies. This means that children are very mildly affected by COVID, either they are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms. We should not be too worried about a third wave affecting children. There is no scientific evidence."

Dr Swaminathan said that if the virus mutates further and get a new variant "it could be worse than Delta variant." The highly transmissible and more infectious Delta variant of COVID-19 has been attributed to be the reason behind the second wave of COVID in the country. India reported 44,643 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, the Union Ministry of health and family welfare said on 6 August. India's active caseload currently stands at 4,14,159 which constitute 1.30 per cent of the total coronavirus cases.