India’s 3rd Covid wave likely to begin in August, say forecasters who predicted 2nd wave

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Aug 02, 2021: The third wave of coronavirus is likely to hit India in the month of August and the daily infections are likely to clock between one lakh to 1.5 lakh, according to a study conducted by IIT researchers.

 

The research was conducted by Mathukumalli Vidyasagar and Manindra Agrawal at IIT Hyderabad and IIT Kanpur, respectively, who developed a mathematical model to predict the rise in Covid-19 cases during the third wave in India. Previously, the researchers had accurately predicted the severe second wave in April-May in which thousands of people lost their lives.

The country may see a worsening of its outbreak as soon as this month, with the next wave peaking in the best-case scenario with less than 100,000 infections a day, or nearly 150,000 in the worst scenario, the research suggests.

States with high Covid-19 rates, such as Kerala and Maharashtra, could “skew the picture", Professor Vidyasagar told Bloomberg in an email.

However, the researchers said the likely third wave is expected to be weaker than the second wave, which saw over four lakh daily cases.The forecast by the researchers suggests that the government accelerate the vaccination drive, deploy surveillance methods to catch emerging hotspots and amplify genome sequencing given the potential for new variants to emerge.

In July, a report published by SBI Research predicted the third wave in India by August which will peak in September. Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) scientist Professor Samiran Panda also told India Today TV that the third wave is likely to come by August-end and India may witness one lakh daily Covid-19 cases.

Currently, India has 4,13,718 active Covid-19 cases with recovery rate at 97.35 per cent. However, southern states such as Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka along with Maharashtra are reporting high daily virus cases. While these states account for 83.12 per cent of the new virus cases, with Kerala alone is responsible for 51.65 per cent of the new cases.

On the vaccination front, the government has administered over 47 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines. However, only seven per cent of the population has been fully vaccinated so far.

Courtesy:India Today