'Mucor is an environmental fungus, and it's much more prevalent in hot and humid areas.' 'The amount of fungus in the air is much higher in India than some other parts of the world.'

'It is important for all of us to understand to have 1. COVID-19-appropriate behaviour, even after vaccination and 2. to try to increase the vaccination drive.'

'The problem is delaying (or missing) the second dose would probably keep you at a 20 per cent risk of still getting COVID-19, till you are fully immunised.'

'In the second wave, probably due to the mutants, probably due to COVID-19-inappropriate behaviour, we are seeing it coming in the younger population, say from ages 30 to 50.' 'Also, we've seen that sometimes they deteriorate pretty rapidly and therefore we may need to keep a closer watch on the symptoms and on the oxygen levels at home.'

'The only way to contain this is to see that a lesser number of people are affected.'

'Your family, your kith and kin are also under stress, some of your relatives will die, without getting appropriate treatment.'

'...of the non-availability of doctor expertise or appropriate treatment.' 'That's because of the nature of the disease at this point of time, it is very difficult to contain.'

'All the vaccines that are available in most countries, right now, are all highly effective and safe.'

'If you don't have a strong political leadership, however much expertise a country may have, in pandemic preparedness or infectious disease, will not matter.' 'It's really about having strong political leadership, that is proactive, that prioritises taking the right action.' 'And if you don't have that, then you will have a much worse pandemic experience.'

'The government had a vaccine from January.' 'The government should have given the vaccine to all population above the age of 45, right from the start.' 'Each state has its own problems, but as far as vaccine coverage in India is concerned, there have been mistakes.'

'We are already exhausted, but we can't give up.' 'The battle is still on.' 'We will see some respite by December 2021.'

'In spite of all the sermonising from the political class, when they come in public, the ministers don't follow their own rules.' 'They don't mask.' 'If you look at the West Bengal election campaigning, if you look at the Assam election campaigning or if you look at Kerala election campaigning, they are not setting an example.'

'There are only two bottlenecks for universal vaccination.' 'One, is availability of the vaccine.' 'Two, is the logistics for administering the vaccine.'

'People are just putting the mask below their nose.' 'They are only protecting the mouth, but not the nose.' 'People need to understand that it is the nose which has to be protected.'

'This year, we know the virus. Last year we didn't know anything about it.' 'The best part is that for the Indian population there has been some amount of cross protection.'

'SARS-CoV-2 is going to change to avoid/overcome any thing thrown at it.'

'We really need to look seriously to see if there are any local variants.'

'You can still acquire the COVID-19 virus even if you are vaccinated.' 'But if you develop the disease, (after being vaccinated) the likelihood is that it will be mild.' 'It just makes sense to continue to take precautions, because you may be around a lot of unvaccinated people.'

'But to see the effects of that, it will take a week or two more.'

'The pandemic basically started with Maharashtra.' 'And then it spread across to the rest of India.' 'Now it is again Maharashtra.'