In a 30-minute interview with Karan Thapar for The Wire, professor Gagandeep Kang said that the Covishield vaccine candidate, a derivate of the AstraZeneca candidate which has been withdrawn in many European countries, is still safe to take. However, she suggested that the second dose should be taken after “eight-twelve” weeks instead of the current gap of 28 days or four weeks.Kang, a professor at the Wellcome Trust Research Laboratory and one of the country’s top vaccine experts, also identified three reasons for the present surge of COVID-19 cases in India. The first is lack of preventive behaviour, most probably because “COVID fatigue” has set in and people have stopped bothering about these measures.The other two reasons, she said, apply particularly to Maharashtra. The first, she said, is a potential variant. She said, “May be sequencing isn’t keeping pace with the upswing.” She said, “It is distinctly possible we have variants”. These could be imported or local. However, she said, it’s more likely to be a local variant.