India may witness the onset of third Covid wave from the next month while peak will arrive in September 2021, according to a report — Covid-19: The race to finishing line — prepared by SBI Research.
The research report says that India achieved its second wave peak on May 7. “Going by the current data, India can experience daily cases around 10,000 somewhere around the 2nd week of July. However, the cases can start rising by the second fortnight of August,” the report said.
The SBI Research report has come close on the heels of predictions from a mathematical model developed by SUTRA (Susceptible, Undetected, Tested (positive), and Removed Approach), which said a possible third wave of coronavirus infection can hit its peak between October-November.
Global data shows that on average third wave peak cases are around 1.7 times the peak cases at the time of second-wave. However, based on historical trends, the cases can start rising by the second fortnight of August with peak cases at least a month later, it added.
On Monday, an IIT scientist of the Government panel in charge of modelling Covid-19 cases had said that the possible third wave of Covid-19 may hit its peak in October-November this year if Covid-appropriate behaviour is not followed, but it is likely to see half the number of daily cases that were recorded during the second surge.
However, if a new virulent variant of SARS-CoV-2 emerges, the infection will spread faster during the third wave, scientist Manindra Agrawal had said.
India has recorded 39,796 new cases in the last 24 hours and the country’s active Covid-19 count has now declined to 4.82 lakh, the data by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.
The Ministry stated that the national weekly positivity rate is currently at 2.40 per cent, whereas, the daily positivity rate stands at 2.61 per cent.
There were also 723 coronavirus-related deaths and 42,352 recoveries between Sunday and Monday morning.
So far, India has seen a total of 4,02,728 fatalities and 2,97,00,430 discharges. Overall, India has fully vaccinated 4.6% of its population, apart from 20.8% having received one dose. This is still lower than other countries including the US, the UK, Israel, Spain, France among others.
Meanwhile, 35.28 crore Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered across the country to date.