COVID-19: What Indian Studies Predict About India's Third Wave

The peak in current wave is expected to come between 1-15 Feb and it is expected to be sharper than earlier peaks.

Altered by The Quint

A preliminary analysis by IIT Madras has predicted the COVID-19 surge to peak between 1-15 February. As per the analysis, India’s R-naught value, which indicates how fast the virus is spreading, was recorded at 4 this week.

If this value dips below 1, the pandemic is considered over. As per the IIT Madras study, the R0 value was close to 2.9 nationwide in the week starting 25 December.

The Assistant Professor of Department of Mathematics in IIT Madras, Dr Jayant Jha stated,

The peak in the current wave is expected to come between 1-15 February and it is expected to be sharper than earlier peaks.

Jayant Jha, as per PTI

Earlier, the The Union Health Ministry had noted that country’s R naught value, detected to be 2.69, was over the value recorded (1.69) amid the second wave of the pandemic.

However, Jha also noted that the peak will be impacted by the high inoculation rates and other factors, such as difference in social distancing measures.

Third Wave to Subside by March: IIT Professor

Speaking to The Indian Express on Monday, 10 January, a professor Mathematics and Computer Science from IIT Kanpur, Manindra Agrawal said that India will experience its third COVID-19 wave in the starting of next month.

"According to our current calculation, which is preliminary, because we don’t have enough data for entire India, we expect the wave to peak somewhere in the beginning of next month," Agarwal told the daily.

Speaking about Mumbai and Delhi, he indicated that the cities will see their peaks in the middle of February.

However, he added that the nation will be out of the third wave's grip by the middle of March.

On the reliability of the calculations, he indicated that while it is true that pandemics are random phenomenon, the model being used "is called the SIR model and has been very useful in predicting the trajectory of several pandemics".

"It’s quite a simple analysis that the more infected persons there will be, the more new infections will get created, because the more transfers can happen. The more uninfected people there will be, the more infected people will get created," Agarwal said, The Indian Express reported.

India May Report 10 Lakh Cases by Jan-End: IISc-ISI model

Meanwhile, researchers a the Indian Institute of Science and Indian Statistical Institute (IISc-ISI) have projected that the country may surpass 10 lakh daily COVID-19 cases by the end of January.

The study, titled 'Projections January-March 2022 IISc-ISI Model' and written by Professor Siva Athreya, Professor Rajesh Sundaresan and a Centre for Networked Intelligence team at IISc-ISI, Bengaluru has projected that COVID-19 will peak during the end of January or beginning of February.

The study indicated, "Past infection, vaccination affected by immunity waning makes a certain fraction of the population susceptible to the new variant," IANS reported.

Further, the data offered in the model is based on three levels of susceptibility – 30 percent, 60 percent and 100 percent. In case of a 30 percent susceptibility criteria, the nation will witness 3 lakh daily cases; a 60 percent susceptibility criteria will result in 6 lakh cases, and 10 lakh cases may be recorded at 100 per cent susceptibility.

(With inputs from PTI, The Indian Express and IANS.)