 Good day to all of you, I am Dr. Naresh, Consultant Pediatrician at Manipal Hospital, Malaysia. As you all know, we are at the beginning of the third wave, so some patients who come to my OPD like even yesterday, they were asking me in Canada, sir, third wave Bharat sir, see every country has started experiencing the third wave, so we are no exception. Optimistic is fine, but we should not become over optimistic that makes us a fool, that's what I believe in, be optimistic, but not over optimistic. Just recently, like yesterday night, I got a news article that mentions that in most of the western countries like Denmark, 90% that's almost 9 out of 10 individuals who are Omicron positive, that is the new strain have been vaccinated, so we need to really be concerned. Just because you are vaccinated, it does not mean that you are going to escape the third wave. Please keep this in mind, this must be like the logo or the caption of the third wave, just because one is vaccinated, it does not mean they will escape the virus because it is a mutated strain. So to begin with being a pediatrician, mainly I am concerned about the kids. See the adults who are vaccinated are not able to escape, so just you think about the younger ones that is from birth till 18 years of age, none of them are vaccinated, schools have opened up, colleges are going on, so it's our duty to be a little more careful. After the experiences that we had from the second wave, I am sure most of you will be knowing somebody who has got the virus in the second wave. I in fact don't know a single person who has told that we are absolutely unaware of the disease during the second wave. Everybody was affected directly or indirectly. One important lesson, especially as a doctor what I learnt is, when the second wave peaked especially between April 20th to May 15th of 2021, we doctors itself found it difficult to get a bed. When members in my family were positive, we were literally begging for a bed. Thank God we all didn't require a bed but there was no bed at all, there was literally no bed available. So what we have to keep in mind is, we are expecting the third wave and most probably the predictions are that it will peak between Jan end that is let us say after Jan 20th till around Feb 15th. Approximately in this three weeks, we may experience the peak. So my request to all of you or my advice or a friendly advice to all of you is, please avoid falling sick at least during the peak of the disease. Knowing the problems and the shortage of bed that we have in our country, we need to be careful so that we are not going to overburden the health care system. Kindly avoid going to crowded places, avoid functions, avoid malls. If it is not needed, please don't go out at least for the next two months, try being at home. Even if you are going to get the disease, it should not be during the peak of the wave because ours being a huge country and the infectivity rate of the Omicron variant is very high. It's almost 1 is to 7 that is one infected person can infect 7 healthy individuals and recently the United States has reported almost 1 million that is 10 lakh cases on a single day. Imagine 10 lakh cases in America who have a population of just one-fourth of our country. So we can't even imagine such numbers here. Kindly avoid going out to crowded places for the next two months. Stay put at home. That's my first advice to all of you so that we all stay healthy. And the second thing is almost all children are not vaccinated. Even if they get vaccinated with one dose, the second dose is going to take another one month or two months. Only then they'll get the complete immunity. So that means most of them will be getting the second dose when the Omicron peak is going on. So we all need to be careful. Even the adults only if needed, it's mandatory to go go out. It's mandatory to go out to any crowded place. You all go out because being vaccinated you may become a carrier and then give it to your children. So we obviously don't want our kids to fall sick with this new variant. So that is the second point. Get all kids vaccinated. Don't delay. Don't wait. Let us see what happens to other kids. Then we'll go ahead with the vaccination. Please no need to delay. And most important thing is if you develop any symptoms, see it is still a new strain from the recent data what we have got from countries. We know this much. It can present with a cold, dry cough or a wet cough, fatigue and fever. These are the symptoms. Cold, dry cough, wet cough, fatigue, fever. So any of these symptoms, even just today I saw a kid in the OPD who just came one hour ago with fever and cold for two days. And they have attended a wedding last week. They have traveled in the flight and reached Bangalore. So I tell the parents you wait for a day more and after 72 hours of fever kindly get a COVID test done. The first question that father asks me in Canada. This attitude has still not gone from our public. See no need to fear the disease. If you are so sure that COVID is not there in your child, then what is wrong in getting the test done? See earlier testing, earlier detection, we can treat the patient and they will recover soon. This is from my personal experience. I'm telling I got tested at 48 hours when I had symptoms and the RTPCR came positive at 72 hours. After that I took treatment immediately. Within seven to eight days of onset me, my family members, all of them improved. But I personally know of people who have delayed the treatment and gotten into a lot of problems. So this is the take home message from today. Stock what I want to give. Any symptoms, any doubt you have kindly show your doctor. It's just like any other disease. Now we know the treatment. Don't get frightened of the disease. Consult your doctor. Get the testing done, especially in the pediatric age group and take the treatment immediately. All of you stay safe and stay at home at least till the end of February of 2022. Good health to all of you. Take care. Bye.