COVID-19 third wave likely in August? Here’s what experts have to say

Under the third COVID-19 wave, the country is likely to witness a peak in coronavirus cases with less than 100,000 COVID-19 cases a day in the best-case scenario or nearly 150,000 in the worst scenario.

Representational Image (Credits: PTI)

New Delhi: As India grapples with the threat of the third COVID-19 wave, a Bloomberg report has warned the country of a possible rise in COVID-19 infections as soon as in August. The Bloomberg report cited leading researchers of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Hyderabad and Kanpur, namely Mathukumalli Vidyasagar and Manindra Agrawal, stated that the possible third COVID-19 wave can arrive in India as soon as August, following which the country can likely witness a peak in coronavirus cases with less than 100,000 COVID-19 cases a day in the best-case scenario or nearly 150,000 in the worst scenario. 

According to a report in Hindustan Times, this surge in COVID-19 cases will push the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic, which may peak in October. The report also stated that Vidyasagar in an email to Bloomberg said that the states with high COVID-19 cases, such as Kerala and Maharashtra, could “skew the picture.”

Meanwhile, many researchers have stated that the third COVID-19 wave is unlikely to be as brutal as the second one, in which the country reported 400,000-plus daily cases. The prediction by the researchers are based on a mathematical model.

Earlier in May, the professor at IIT Hyderabad, Vidyasagar, based on the mathematical model, had said the nation’s coronavirus outbreak could peak in the coming days. “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," the Hindustan Times reported quoted Vidyasagar as saying in an email.

The report also revealed that the prediction made by Vidyasagar in April that the COVID-19 wave would peak by the middle of last month was incorrect. At that time, Vidyasagar wrote on Twitter that the predictions were deemed false and invalid because of incorrect parameters as “the pandemic was changing rapidly, even wildly, until about a week ago."

Additionally, the medical experts also warned that the Delta variant of COVID-19 can also be passed on by vaccinated people, which can in turn fuel the surge. 

Meanwhile, India recorded 41,831 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours and the country's active count has now increased to 4.10 lakh, the data by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare showed on Sunday (August 1, 2021) morning. The health ministry also added that the active cases now constitute 1.30 percent of the total cases. India also recorded 541 coronavirus-related deaths and 39,258 recoveries in the last 24 hours on Sunday, taking the death toll to 4,24,351, while over a total of 3,08,20,521 people have recovered from the infection.