In a latest development, the fourth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in India may start around June 22 and peak from mid to late August, a modeling study by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur suggests. It should be noted that the study has not been peer-reviewed yet. It was recently posted on the preprint repository MedRxiv.

 

 

The authors in the study used a statistical model to make the prediction, finding that the possible new wave will last for four months. The study led by Sabara Parshad Rajeshbhai, Subhra Sankar Dhar, and Shalabh of IIT Kanpur’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics shows that the severity of the fourth wave will depend on the emergence of a possible new coronavirus variant, and vaccination status across the country.

 

“The next variant of concern will be more fit, and what we mean by that is it will be more transmissible because it will have to overtake what is currently circulating,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead. The same research team had previously predicted that the third wave of the pandemic in India would peak by February 3, 2022. That research studied the trend of the Omicron-led surge in Covid-19 cases in other countries and predicted that India too will witness a similar trajectory.

 

 

The researchers noted that many countries have already witnessed the third wave of Covid-19, and a few countries like South Africa and Zimbabwe have started to face the fourth and higher waves of the pandemic. “The third wave of Covid-19 was predicted for India using the data of Zimbabwe, and when the third wave in India is finishing, it is now clear that the forecast was correct,” the authors added.

 

The single-day rise in coronavirus infections fell below 10,000 after two months, with 8,013 cases taking India’s total tally to 4,29,24,130, according to Union health ministry data updated on Monday.