India may see start of third covid wave from next month

Raising the alarm bells for policymakers and citizens, a research report has contended that India may witness the third covid wave from August 2021. The report – COVID-19: The race to finishing line – prepared by SBI Research, claims that the covid third wave peak will arrive in the month of September 2021.

The research report says that India achieved its second wave peak on 7th May. “Going by the current data, India can experience cases around10,000 somewhere around the 2nd week of July. However, the cases can start rising by the second fortnight of August,” the report said.

These are the highlights from the report

• Global data shows that on average third wave peak cases are around 1.7 times the peak cases at the time of second-wave.
• However, based on historical trends the cases can start rising by the second fortnight of Aug’21 with peak cases at least a month later.
• India has started giving more than 40 lakh vaccination doses per day as shown by 7 DMA.
• Overall, India has fully vaccinated 4.6% of its population, apart from 20.8% having received one dose. This is still lower than other countries including the US, the UK, Israel, Spain, France among others.

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