New Delhi: India may see a third wave of COVID-19 peaking between October and November if a more virulent mutant than the existing ones emerges by September, but its intensity is expected to be much lower than the second wave, a scientist involved in the mathematical modelling of the pandemic said on Monday.
Manindra Agrawal, an IIT-Kanpur scientist who is part of the three-member team of experts that have been tasked with predicting any surge in infections, said if no new virulent emerges, then the situation is unlikely to change.
If the third wave peaks, the country may see only 1 lakh daily cases as against more than 4 lakh when the deadly second wave was at its peak in May. The second wave killed thousands and infected several lakh.
"Status Quo is when no new mutant comes and New Variant is when 50% more infectious mutant comes by September. As one can see, the only scenario with some semblance of the third wave is New Variant one for epsilon = 1/33. In this scenario, new cases rise to ~1 lakh per day," Agrawal tweeted.
Last month, the model suggested that the third wave could peak between October and November and the daily cases could shoot between 1.5 lakh to 2 lakh every day if a more virulent mutant of SARS-CoV2 drive fresh infections.
However, no mutant that was more infectious than the Delta, which drove the infections during the third wave, emerged.
India saw a single-day rise of 42,909 new Covid infections, which took the total tally of cases to 3,27,37,939, while active cases registered an increase for the sixth consecutive day, according to Union Health ministry data updated on Monday.
The death toll has climbed to 4,38,210 with 380 fresh fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.
The number of active cases has increased to 3,76,324 and comprise 1.15 per cent of the total infections. It said active cases in the country increased by 7,766 cases in a span of 24 hours.
The number of vaccine doses administered in the country crossed the 64-crore mark on Monday, the Union Health ministry said.
More than 53 lakh (53,37,042) doses of the vaccine were administered on Monday, according to a provisional report compiled at 7 pm.
More than 63.09 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses have so far been provided to the states and Union Territories by the Centre for free and under the direct state procurement category, the ministry said on Monday.
Further, more than 21.76 lakh (21,76,930) doses are in the pipeline, it added.
More than 4.87 crore (4,87,39,946) balance and unutilised COVID-19 vaccine doses are still available with the states, the ministry maintained.
A new variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes Covid, has been detected in South Africa and many other countries globally which could be more transmissible and evade protection provided by vaccines, according to a study.
Scientists from National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP) in South Africa said the potential variant of interest, C.1.2, was first detected in the country in May this year.
C.1.2 has since been found in China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mauritius, England, New Zealand, Portugal and Switzerland as of August 13, they said.
According to the yet-to-be peer-reviewed study posted on the preprint repository MedRxiv on August 24, C.1.2 has mutated substantially compared to C.1, one of the lineages which dominated the SARS-CoV-2 infections in the first wave in South Africa.
The new variant has more mutations than other variants of concern (VOCs) or variants of interest (VOIs) detected worldwide so far, the researchers said.
They noted that the number of available sequences of C.1.2 may be an underrepresentation of the spread and frequency of the variant in South Africa and around the world.