Fourth Covid wave in India unlikely: IIT Kanpur professor

The possibility of a fourth wave of Covid-19 in India remains low, believes IIT Kanpur professor Manindra Agarwal, whose mathematical model has been a reference point for understanding the pandemic activity and behaviour in the country over the past two years.

Lucknow: “The surge in Covid-19 cases is not building up the fourth wave, as of now.” On the reason for surge in cases in several states, including Delhi and NCR districts of Gautam Budh Nagar and Ghaziabad of UP, he said, “The present rise in cases appears to be the result of lifting of curbs. It looks like a result of life returning to normalcy.”

UP has been daily reporting more than 100 Covid-19 cases in the past three days. As many as 135 new cases were reported on Sunday.
Citing the reasoning for his prediction, he said: “The natural immunity against the coronavirus among the people is above 90%, which will not give room to new variants to thrive and spread.” He credited this to large-scale exposure during the second wave and high coverage of immunisation against the virus that helped in achieving the “herd immunity”.

Data from the health ministry shows that the total number of Covid vaccine doses administered in India exceeded 186.51 crore on Sunday.
In most states, the entire eligible adult population has received the first dose while two out of three are fully immunised. In UP, nearly 86% of the adult population has taken both the doses. He said that natural immunity was also the reason for low hospitalisation of the active cases.
However, he advocated that while the governments must continue with their monitoring and surveillance work, people must ensure that they do not become spreaders. “Everybody must follow the prevention protocol, especially when someone is down with flu-like symptoms,” he added.

It is a wait-and-watch situation as of now. In several countries, cases did rise but then the numbers came down,” he said, adding, “There is no need to panic but precaution must be taken by governments and people.”
Prof Agarwal lauded the UP government’s strategy to undertake genome sequencing of Covid-19 cases.Taking note of the matter, the Union health secretary wrote to states of Kerala, Delhi, Maharashtra, Haryana and Mizoram to monitor the spread of infection and adopt necessary measures for prompt and effective management of the disease.