Fourth COVID Wave May Hit India In June, To Continue For About 4 Months, Warns IIT-Kanpur Study
Highlights
- India is set to see the fourth covid wave in mid to late June, with the spike expected to last around four months, according to a new study conducted by a team of IIT Kanpur scientists.
- However, the severity will vary according to the type of the variant and the country’s vaccination status.
- According to the study, the fourth wave of COVID-19 will arrive in India 936 days from the first data release date of January 30, 2020.
The third wave of the pandemic, fueled by the Omicron type, appears to be levelling out in India, but a recent research shows that relaxation should not be premature.
India is set to see the fourth covid wave in mid- to late-June, with the spike expected to last around four months, according to a new research conducted by a team of IIT Kanpur scientists.
However, the severity will vary according on the variant’s nature and the country’s vaccination status.
Sabara Parshad Rajeshbhai, Subhra Sankar Dhar, and Shalabh of IIT Kanpur’s Mathematics department conducted the study, which employed a blend of Gaussian distributions based on Zimbabwean data.
The work, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, has been published as a pre-print on MedRxiv.
Will India face fourth COVID wave?
According to the study, the fourth wave of COVID-19 will arrive in India 936 days from the first data release date of January 30, 2020.
“Therefore, the fourth wave begins on June 22, 2022, peaks on August 23, 2022, and concludes on October 24, 2022,” they said, adding, “Moreover, the 99 percent confidence interval for the day the curve peaks is approximately between August 15, 2022, and August 31, 2022.”
The study’s authors stated that the severity of the impact will rely on a variety of characteristics such as infectivity, lethality, and so on.
Apart from this, they continued, the effect of immunizations – first, second, or booster dose – may play a significant role in the likelihood of infection, the severity of illness, and several other concerns associated with the fourth wave.
Another study revealed that the next COVID variation may manifest itself in one of two ways. There is no assurance, however, that the newly found variation would be less severe than the previously known variants.