IIT-Kanpur study reveals COVID 3rd wave already in India, likely to peak in Feb 2022

Amidst the rise in Omicron cases in the country, the third wave of coronavirus has set its's foot in India from mid-December, affirmed health experts in India. As per the studies by researchers from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT)- Kanpur, this wave is expected to hit its peak across India in February 2022. While the scientists guarantee the third wave, they urge people to not panic and take all the necessary precautions for their own safety as this wave is likely to be a mild one.

Experts predict the impact & timeline for the third wave of COVID

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Notably, a group of scientists from IIT- Kanpur deployed a statistical methodology established on the fitting of a mixture of Gaussian distributions, on the basis of an algorithm for clustering to estimate the parameters. The forecast of this wave was done by using the available data on the first two waves of this pandemic. Apart from this, researchers also studied the data of countries that have been gripped by the third wave already. By modelling their daily caseload, scientists have predicted the impact and timeline for the third wave of COVID in India.

The paper by Subhra Sankar Dhar- Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics from IIT Kanpur read, "The report forecasts India's third wave of Covid-19 to start around mid-December 2021 and the cases to peak at the beginning of February 2022".

Omicron displaces Delta as the dominant variant!

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Meanwhile, based on the Sutra Model, a separate study led by a team from the IITs of Hyderabad and Kanpur is tracking India's Covid-19 trajectory. As per M. Vidyasagar, head of the National Covid-19 Supermodel Committee, the daily fresh cases are likely to witness a spike in the country as Omicron displaces Delta as the dominant variant.

While Omicron is said to be three times more transmissible than the Delta variant, the strain behind the sinister second wave in India, this new variant is not as harmful hence this wave is expected to be a milder one. As per the experts, the infection rate will also not be as severe as witnessed in the second wave owing to a large-scale immunity and vaccination present in the country.

With inputs from IANS