India is witnessing a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic covid-19. This pandemic has proved to the most unpredictable due to the quick spread new variant of coronavirus. The infection and its trajectory is still evolving across the globe. India is currently experiencing a massive covid-19 surge (Fig. 1). Neither the Indian Government or public was prepared for this pandemic. Active cases of covid-19 in India crossed the three million mark for the first time. Handlining such a volume can be debilitating for any country like India that has a shortage of resources including life-saving resources such as medicine, hospital beds, oxygen, ventilators, even ambulances, and their management. There has been shocking, collective policy failure. Some states have created so-called war room for managing resources at hospital and others have made portals showing live-availability of beds and oxygen but execution of such measures is not carried out properly. However, there are report mismanagement of proper information about the availability of beds, medicine and oxygen. Deaths in many states are still could on the basis of reporting from hospitals. The deaths of patients while waiting outside a hospital for a bed or while under home quarantine, with or without a covid-19 test report, are never included in official statistics. The real deaths toll is for higher than official figures. Numerous crematoriums in Delhi have been forces to expand into footpaths, nearby parks, car parks and open ground. The WHO chief Tedros Tedros says that the situation in India is beyond heartbreaking. India’s deadly covid-19 second wave was cased by a ‘perfect storm’ of mass gatherings, low vaccination and more contagious variants.  The WHO also said unnecessary pressure was being put on India’s healthcare system by people who were going to hospital in a panic when they could recover from covid-19 at home. The massive struggle for hospital beds, medicine and oxygen are affecting the mental well-being of people. The WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic  also warned against blaming mutation of a virus at the sole cause of the Tsunami of cases that have engulfed India in second wave, collapsing the country’s healthcare system.

The double mutant strain with E484Q and L452R have point substitutions which fall in the key RGM (438-506) region of the RBD. So, they may induce major changes in the virus’s properties. First mutant involves the change of leucine to arginine substitutions at amino acid 452 (L452R). This changes both increases the affinity of the spike for the receptor and decrease antibody recognition. Second mutation of interest occurs at amino acid 484. E484 is a known vaccine immunity evader mutation. The Indian variant  B.1.617 is also mutated at position 484, but mutation is different. The glutamic acid is substituted by the polar uncharged amino acid glutamine (E484Q). This change confers increased ACE2 binding and immune evasion properties.

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