Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, keeping up his attack on the government over its handling of the COVID pandemic, said on Tuesday that multiple waves of the virus were possible and the government needed to be better prepared. Gandhi added that the management of the first and second waves was ‘disastrous’, but lauded Monday’s record vaccinations in the country.

“It’s clear that management of the first and second wave of COVID was disastrous and we’ve tried to point out the reasons behind it. I would even go so far as to say that there might be waves even after the third wave of COVID-19 as the virus is mutating,” Gandhi said at a virtual press meet called to release a white paper on the pandemic.

Hitting out at the Centre over oxygen shortage as the country was battered by an aggressive second COVID wave, Gandhi said that 90% of the people who died could have been saved. “The biggest reason for this was the lack of oxygen at the time,” he said.

Taking a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who got emotional during an online interaction with healthcare workers last month, Gandhi said that the PM’s tears didn’t save the lives of people, but oxygen could’ve saved them. 

Lauding the record number of vaccinations in the country on Monday (85.15 lakh received the shot), Gandhi said that the government had to make this process work not just for one day but every day until the entire population is vaccinated.