The Indian Express newspaper reported on Sunday that the country’s COVID-19 taskforce has advised the federal government to impose a national lockdown. The eastern state of Odisha and northern industrial state Haryana became the latest to announce new lockdowns on Sunday, joining Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka and West Bengal.

“We are seeing some mutation coming up in some samples that could possibly evade immune responses,” said Shahid Jameel, chair of the scientific advisory group of INSACOG and a top Indian virologist. He did not say if the mutations have been seen in the Indian variant or any other strain.

“Unless you culture those viruses and test them in the lab, you can’t say for sure. At this point, there is no reason to believe that they are expanding or if they can be dangerous, but we flagged it so that we keep our eye on the ball,” he said.

“Our belief is that by next week, the daily new cases nationwide would have peaked,” M. Vidyasagar, head of a government-appointed group of scientists modelling the trajectory of infections, told Reuters.

On the charge of profiteering as the cost of Covishield was recently hiked, he termed it as “totally incorrect” and added that Covishield will still be “the most affordable vaccine on the planet” even at a higher price.

“We have done the best we can without cutting corners or doing anything wrong or profiteering. I’ll wait for history to judge,” he said.

“I’ve always had this sense of responsibility to India and the world because of the vaccines we were making, but never have we made a vaccine so needed in terms of saving lives,” he added.

With 3,523 people succumbing to the infection in the last 24 hours, the death toll has mounted to 2,11,853.