On the one side, the national vaccination programme is in full swing. The jab appears to be reassuring. In fact, the Centre has invited bids for drone-led vaccine delivery in remote areas and challenging locations. A standard protocol for vaccine delivery through Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) has been developed by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur.
That doesn’t mean to say that everyone is safe. No, far from that, there’s a murky dimension to it. Delta itself has boosted the second wave of the infection in India. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has described Delta as a ‘Variant of Concern’ (VoC). The second wave is not yet over, though the case trajectory is coming down. Being highly infectious, Delta has now mutated into Delta Plus, also known as AY.1.
What makes Delta Plus more dangerous than Delta is that it contains an additional mutation called K417N first found...