New Delhi: As covid-19 with the emergence of new variant omicron, the third wave of coronavirus may peak in India by February with the possibility of reaching 1-1.5 lakh, but it will be marginal as compared to the second wave, IIT Scientist Maninder Aggarwal said.
Agarwal, who is involved in the mathematical projection of the trajectory of COVID-19, shared the concerns in the latest forecast which incorporates the new Omron variant.
Read also: More children getting infected with Omicron variant: WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan
Should India be worried about the third wave?
“With the new version, our current forecast is that the country may see a third wave by February but it will be milder than the second wave. So far we have observed that the severity of Omicron is not the same as that seen in the delta version,” Agarwal told PTI.
Cases are being closely monitored in South Africa where many such cases have been reported. Aggarwal said that the number of hospitalizations in South Africa has not increased so far.
We plot three scenarios:
Optimistic: Vaccines don’t reduce immunity
Intermediate: Vaccine immunity halved
Pessimistic: Vaccine immunity goes away completelyAs can be seen, there is a mild third wave, with a peak of between 100-150K infections per day, occurring sometime in February. pic.twitter.com/qw5PZlm54J
— Manindra Agarwal (@agrawalmanindra) 3 December 2021
However, the IIT Kanpur scientist said a fresh set of data on the virus and hospitalization would help get a more concrete picture. “It appears that although the new version has shown higher transmission efficiency, its severity is not the same as that seen in the delta version,” Agarwal said.
what a drag?
Agarwal mentioned that at the time of delta rise it was observed that a light lockdown (night curfew, restrictions on crowds) can reduce the beta to a great extent. This will significantly reduce the peak value, he said.
The Department of Science and Technology (DST)-backed formula-model had earlier said that the third wave of coronavirus could knock in the country by October, if a new variant, which is more virulent and transmissible than Delta, emerges.
With no new version until the end of November, it has revised its forecast to November.
Omicron, the new version of COVID, will primarily affect India’s major cities as people are traveling, Dr Rakesh Mishra, Director and Former Chief Scientist and Industrial Research-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Tata Institute for Genetics and Society , told news agency ANI in an exclusive interview.
On 26 November, the World Health Organization (WHO) named the Covid-19 virus variant found in South Africa and some other countries as Omicron. The WHO has also classified Omicron variants as ‘Variants of Concern’.
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