Mumbai: The third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to peak much earlier than forecast and may take a maximum of three weeks. This claim has been made in a report.
SBI Research said in a report on Tuesday that this expectation has arisen from a sharp reduction in new cases in the top 15 districts, which have the highest number of infections. Infections in the top 15 districts have come down to 37.4 percent in January, which is It was 67.9 percent in December. However, the report acknowledges that 10 of these top 15 districts are major cities and among them, Bengaluru and Pune still have high infection rates.
The overall share of rural districts in new cases rose to 32.6 percent in January from 14.4 percent in December, the report said. This is far less than the US, where there has been a 6.9-fold increase in new cases, even though it has double-vaccinated more than 80 percent of its eligible population.
Another reason for this hope is that India has given both doses of the vaccine to 64 percent of the eligible population, while 89 percent of the eligible population has received the first dose. The share of rural immunization in total vaccination is now 83 percent, indicating that the rural population can be largely protected in the current wave.
Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, and Uttarakhand have already administered double doses of the vaccine to over 70 percent of their population. However, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand are still lagging behind.
Significantly, new cases have reached their peak in Mumbai. On January 7, 20,971 cases were reported in Mumbai. But other districts (Bengaluru, Pune, etc.) are showing an increase in the number of daily new cases. Therefore, if other districts also implement strict measures and control the spread of the pandemic, the national peak of this wave may come within two-three weeks from now, said Soumya Kanti Ghosh, chief economic advisor at SBI, in the report.
