Potential Covid-19 third wave could peak between Oct-Nov: Study

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The potential third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in India might peak between October and November in case a more virulent mutant of the virus emerges by September, but it is expected to be less intense as compared to the second wave, according to a study by IIT scientists.

Manindra Agrawal, a scientist at IIT-Kanpur, said that the situation is likely to remain the same unless a new virulent mutant emerges. Agrawal is a part of the three-member team of experts that are currently working towards predicting any possible surge in India’s active caseload.

Predictions

In case of a third wave peaks, India might see 1.5-2 lakh daily cases as compared to the devastating second wave where the number had exceeded 4 lakh new cases daily during its peak in May, according to the scientists as reported. Thousands of Indians lost their lives, while several lakhs got infected by the deadly virus during the peak of the second wave.

Agarwal has been posting the findings of his study on Twitter since July. “We plot two scenarios….Status quo is when no new mutant comes and New Variant is when 50% more infectious mutant comes by September. As one can see, the only scenario with some semblance of third wave is New Variant one for epsilon = 1/33. In this scenario, new cases rise to 1 lakh per day,” tweeted Agrawal on August 30.

<SUTRA’s analysis of third wave> @stellensatz @Ashutos61 @Sandeep_1966 @shekhar_mande It took us a while to do the analysis for three reasons. First, loss of immunity in recovered population. Second, vaccination induced immunity. Each of these two need to be estimated for future.

— Manindra Agrawal (@agrawalmanindra) July 2, 2021

In July, the model had suggested that the third wave could peak somewhere between October and November with daily cases touching the 1.5-2 lakh, in case of a more virulent mutant Covid-19. However, no new variant that exceeded the infectiousness of the Delta variant has emerged so far. Widespread vaccination continues to be India’s biggest and most powerful weapon in this fight against the deadly pandemic.

India recorded 30,941 fresh Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours on August 31, along with 36,275 recoveries. Active cases account for 1.13% of total cases and currently stand at 3,70,640. The current recovery rate is 97.53% with a total of 3,19,59,680 recoveries recorded so far.

In terms of vaccination, 64.20 Crore doses have been administered so far across India. Around 49. 50 crore people have received at least 1 dose, while 14. 70 crore have received both doses.