IIT Researchers Forecast a Third, Less Brutal COVID Wave; May Peak in October

The researchers had previously accurately forecast the lessening of the surge in Covid-19 cases earlier this year.

As per a mathematical model, researchers led by Mathukumalli Vidyasagar and Manindra Agrawal at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad and Kanpur respectively have said that COVID-19 cases could see an ascending curve as soon as August.

(Photo: FIT)

As per a mathematical model, researchers led by Mathukumalli Vidyasagar and Manindra Agrawal at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad and Kanpur, respectively, have said that COVID-19 cases could see the starting of an ascending curve as soon as August and peak in October, Bloomberg reported.

However, the third COVID-19 wave is unlikely to be as unsparing as the second wave, which had reached over 400,000 daily cases at it's peak.

The researchers have reportedly said that the third wave will peak with less than 100,000 daily infections in the best-case scenario, or about 150,000 cases in the worst scenario.

In an email to Bloomberg, Vidyasagar said that states with high Covid-19 infections, such as Kerala and Maharashtra, could 'skew the picture'.

The researchers had previously accurately forecasted the lessening of the surge in Covid-19 cases earlier this year.

However, in an email to Bloomberg in April, the same team had forecasted that the third wave would peak mid-July. On Twitter, he provided an explanation and said that the error was due to incorrect parameters as 'the pandemic was changing rapidly, even wildly, until about a week ago'.

COVID-19 Situation in India

On Monday, India reported 40,134 Covid-19 cases and 422 deaths in the last 24 hours.

Amid speculations of the third wave, Centre has advised 10 states, including Kerala, Maharashtra and several northeasters regions to take steps to manage their rate of infections.

Kerala’s daily COVID cases had started dropping in May and came close to 10,000 daily cases. However, by mid-July, the cases began to see a gradual rise, which has been attributed to the opening up of restrictions.

Meanwhile, the dominant Delta variant of the virus has also been a cause for concern among experts. In an earlier interview with The Quint, Senior virologist Dr Jacob T John explained, “The fast pace of infection is due to the Delta variant. The earlier Wuhan B614G variant showed how one infected person could infect two others. The Delta variant has showed, one person that infect six people.”