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Amid the current surge in COVID-19 cases across several cities such as Mumbai and Delhi, the people of India are fearing the onslaught of the third wave of the pandemic, while authorities are gearing up to fight the Omicron variant in the country.
As these fears in India are increasing, a professor from Cambridge has said that the country is likely to experience a spurt in the COVID-19 growth rate within some days, which might lead to an intense but short-lived wave of infections in India.
Paul Kattuman, professor at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge, which has developed a COVID-19 India tracker, made these predictions. Kattuman, as quoted by Bloomberg, said, “It is likely that India will see a period of explosive growth in daily cases and that the intense growth phase will be relatively short.”
The Cambridge professor further added in an email, “New infections will begin to rise in a few days, possibly within this week.” He also said that though a surge in the COVID-19 cases is expected, it is hard to predict how high the cases will actually go.
According to Bloomberg reports, Kattuman and his team of researchers, who are the developers of the India COVID-19 tracker, saw a sharp rise in infection rates across India. The adjusted growth rate of the new infections exceeded 5 percent in six states, classifying them as “significant concern”.
Several states and cities in India are experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases, sparking a wave of concern among authorities and residents. The country added 9,195 COVID-19 cases Wednesday- the highest new daily cases in three weeks- pushing the total confirmed tally to 34.8 million infections.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently announced that frontline workers, healthcare workers, and senior citizens with comorbidities will get administered the booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while the vaccination drive for those between the ages 15 to 18 will also start from January.
Many states across India have imposed stricter COVID-19 restrictions over the past week in view of the Christmas and New Year celebrations. The Delhi government has issued a yellow alert in the national capital, shutting down cinemas, schools, and gyms and imposing a night curfew.
