Omicron driven third wave in Feb

NEW DELHI: India’s daily Covid-19 caseload, which is presently at 7,500 infections, is projected to rise after the Omicron takes over as the dominant type, according to members of the National Covid-19 Supermodel Committee, who also forecast the third wave in India early next year.

Vidyasagar, who is also the head of the National Covid-19 Supermodel Committee, said that India will have Omicron’s third wave but it will be milder than the second wave.

“In India, the third wave is expected to come early next year. Because the country already has widespread immunity, it should be milder than the second wave. There will, without a doubt, be a third wave. We’re now averaging roughly 7,500 instances each day, with that number expected to rise if Omicron begins to supplant Delta as the main variation”.

Vidyasagar, who is also a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Hyderabad, said that it’s unlikely that India will see more daily cases than the second wave.

“It is extremely unlikely that the third wave will see more daily cases than the second wave. Please remember that the Government of India started vaccinating ordinary Indians (i.e., other than front-line workers) only starting March 1, which was just about the time that the Delta variant hit. So the Delta variant hit a population that was 100 per cent vaccine-naive, other than the frontline workers.”

He further said that according to a sero-survey, a tiny fraction has left that hasn’t come into contact with delta virus, “Now we have sero-prevalence of 75 per cent to 80 per cent (prior exposure), first dose for 85 per cent of adults, both doses for 55 per cent of adults, and a “reach” for the pandemic of 95 per cent (meaning that only a tiny fraction of the public has not come into contact with the virus