Third Covid wave likely to peak in October, India may see 1.50 lakh cases per day:

The third wave of COVID-19 may hit India this month (August) and may hit a peak in October, researchers have said. According to a report in Bloomberg, researchers led by Mathukumalli Vidyasagar and Manindra Agrawal at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Hyderabad and Kanpur respectively have said the third wave of the novel coronavirus may peak with less than 1,00,000 infections a day in the best-case scenario; or nearly 1,50,000 cases a day in the worst scenario. 

The predictions on the COVID-19 third wave come from researchers who had accurately forecast the lessening of the surge in COVID-19 cases earlier this year, and this study is based on a mathematical model.

The third wave is very likely to peak by October, researchers were quoted as saying. Also in an email, Vidyasagar, a professor at IIT Hyderabad, said that states showing a high COVID positivity rate (such as Kerala and Maharashtra at present), could “skew the picture.”

On the third wave predictions, the researchers have further said it is not likely to be as brutal as the second wave. 

In May, Vidyasagar had said India’s coronavirus outbreak could peak in the coming days based on the mathematical model. 

“Our predictions are that the peak will come within a few days. As per current projections, we should hit 20,000 cases per day by the end of June. We will revise this as needed," Vidyasagar



had said. 

Meanwhile, fresh COVID-19 cases in India registered a week-on-week rise for the first time in 12 weeks since the peak of the second wave in early May. Currently, however, the surge is mainly restricted to Kerala and, to a much lesser degree, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Overall, India registered more than 2.86 lakh new cases in the current week (July 26-August 1), a 7.5 per cent 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 per cent.

According to the Health Ministry data updated on Monday, India registered 40,134 fresh COVID-19 infections, pushing its virus tally to 3,16,95,958, while the number of active cases registered an increase for the sixth consecutive day. 

The death toll from the pandemic climbed to 4,24,773 with 422 daily fatalities.

The number of active coronavirus cases has increased to 4,13,718 and comprises 1.31 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 97.35 per cent, the data updated at 8 am showed.

An increase of 2,766 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.