With Covid cases once again rising rapidly, many experts believe that India is experiencing its third wave of the pandemic. But what does the future have in store? At its peak, will the third wave cause scenes of desperation like last year? Is India well-prepared, or will the more infectious Omicron variant overwhelm the system again?
Experts have been developing various models to predict when the peak - the worst phase of the wave - will occur, and what it will look like.
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The Sutra model reportedly projects that the peak may occur towards the end of January and the beginning of February. The daily cases at the peak may be around 4-8 lakhs with hospital bed requirement hitting 1.5 lakh. It says that Delhi's peak may occur sometime around January 15 and 20. Daily cases may reach up to 70,000 and hospital bed requirement may be 12,000. The prediction for Mumbai is slightly better with daily cases around 30,000 to 60,000, and hospital bed requirement at 10,000.
This model has been developed by experts from IIT Kanpur and Hyderabad, the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, and the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences.
The other model has been developed by the Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Statistical Institute. It projects that the third wave may peak around January end and early February. The model says that if the population is 100% susceptible then the daily cases may reach 10 lakh. If the population is 60% susceptible, then daily cases may hit 6 lakhs. If the population is 30% susceptible, then the daily cases be hover around 3 lakh at the peak.
According to this projection, Maharashtra may see 1.75 lakh cases per day during the peak if susceptibility is 100%. Delhi may see 70,000 while Kerala may see around 1 lakh. Tamil Nadu may report 80,000 daily cases.
All these projections are dependent on what has been seen so far, with the experts saying that the actual experience may be different according to how the situation evolves.