India may witness a rise in Covid-19 cases as soon as August with the third wave peaking with less than 100,000 infections a day in the best-case scenario or nearly 150,000 in the worst scenario, researchers have said. 

Researchers led by Mathukumalli Vidyasagar and Manindra Agrawal at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Hyderabad and Kanpur have also noted that the surge in Covid-19 cases will push the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic, which may peak in October. 

The third wave of Covid-19 is unlikely to be as brutal as the second wave when India reported 400,000-plus daily cases, the study further said.

Covid in India registered a 7.5% rise in cases after a steady decline for 11 weeks. India recorded just over 2.86 lakh new cases in the current week from July 26 to August 1, a 7.5% rise from the previous week’s tally of 2.66 lakh. Weekly cases in the country have registered a rise for the first time since May 3-9, when the second wave peaked.

The fall in cases had continued till last week, even though the decline had slowed to 1.4%. The surge, however, is mainly restricted to Kerala and, to a much lesser degree, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Kerala logged close to 1.4 lakh cases in the present week, a 26.5% increase from the previous week’s tally of 1.1 lakh. The state accounted for nearly half (49%) of all new cases in the country in the last seven days, with a daily average of 20,000 new cases.

Source: news18.com

BSDT: 1740 HRS, AUG 2, 2021
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