No fourth wave in India right now, says ICMR amid spike in Covid-19 cases

The current spike in the number of daily Covid-19 cases in India cannot be termed as the fourth wave of the pandemic, said ICMR's Samiran Panda.

Credits: PTI

New Delhi: As several states in India are witnessing a rise in Covid-19 cases, the Indian council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Sunday (May 1, 2022) informed that recent data did not indicate the onset of a fourth wave of coronavirus infections, reported IANS. 

The current spike in the number of daily Covid-19 cases in India cannot be termed as the fourth wave of the pandemic, Samiran Panda, Additional Director General of ICMR said. 

This statement by the ICMC official comes amid a steady uptick in various parts of the world and the emergence of several new variants and recombinant strains.

Panda said the surge has been observed at district levels, hence, it cannot be said that the country is moving towards a fourth wave.

"Some surges have been observed at district levels. This is called a blip... Blips are confined to certain geographical regions of the country," he said.

He also gave four reasons in favour of the statement and explained why this is not the indication of a fourth wave. Read the explanations below:

1. The surge has been found at some local levels which is due to the testing ratio.

2. Secondly, what we see is just a blip and we cannot say that entire states are under the grip of Covid, said Panda. 

3. Thirdly, there is no increase in the hospital admission across the country, he noted.

4. And last and the most important point to note is that no new variant has been found yet which indicates that there is no fourth wave right now.

ICMR’s Additional Director General also talked about the rising positivity rate in several parts of the nation and said that sometimes the rate goes up because of low testing.

Meanwhile, India on Monday reported 3,157 new Covid-19 infections, according to Union health ministry data. The active caseload increased to 19,500. India recorded 26 deaths today, pushing the death toll to 5,23,869. The country also reported 2,723 recoveries in a day. 

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease has increased to 4,25,38,976, while the case fatality rate has been recorded at 1.22 per cent.