The third wave may peak in Delhi and Mumbai later this week, say experts

Belying our hopes and prayers, experts now say that COVID-19’s third wave may peak in Delhi and Mumbai, which are already in the severe grip of the virus and its mutants, in four-five days’ time. The peak could cover the entire nation by January end and the country could see four to eight lakh cases every day. According to IIT Kanpur professor Manindra Agrawal, who is also the lead of the Government-backed Sutra Model that tracks and mathematically predicts the spread of the virus, Delhi will witness 50,000 to 60,000 daily cases as compared to 30,000 in Mumbai during the peak period. Meanwhile, assessing the Capital’s preparedness in its fight against Coronavirus, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal visited the LNJP Hospital and lauded the facility as “the country’s best hospital, having treated more than 22,000 patients so far”. Appealing to people not to press the panic button as “very few cases are getting hospitalised”, he had on Sunday said there was no plan to impose a lockdown “as of now” and that it won’t even be needed if people wore masks. The CM clarified that his Government’s attempt was to impose “minimum restrictions” so that livelihoods are not affected.

However, the city’s problems seem to be far from over; it recorded 21,259 new COVID cases with a positivity rate of 25.65 per cent on Tuesday. The AAP Government is facing resentment from hoteliers and restaurateurs as well, who’d better be kept on its right side since, following ordering the closure of restaurants/bars and allowing only takeaway facility, most people ordering food indoors will rely on the hotel and delivery staff by a big measure. The Government had earlier hastily announced certain restrictions, including operating Metro trains and buses at 50 per cent seating capacity, which led to serpentine queues outside the stations. As there was a simultaneous spurt in Coronavirus cases, especially those caused by the lesser deadly but highly transmissible Omicron variant, the Government, in its wisdom, decided to shorten the waiting time (time spent in proximity of one another) in these queues and therefore allowed the buses/train coaches to again operate with full seating capacity. Now how does that help the cause of curbing the spread of the virus, is anybody’s guess. Such knee-jerk reactions and decisions are actually scaring the citizens, rather than motivating them in the fight against the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its rapid mutations.