Will the third wave of coronavirus in India be deadlier than second? Scientist explains
Central government reported two cases of the Omicron variant in the Southern state Karnataka
India recently battled the second wave of coronavirus which took thousands of lives, and experts are urging people to follow the covid precautions to make sure the third wave is not as deadly as the previous one.
As per several scientific and media reports, India can expect a third wave of COVID-19 between October-November, but experts believe that would happen only if people do not follow the set rules and regulations.
Professor Manindra Agarwal is a scientist who is a part of the government panel that is tasked with modelling of coronavirus cases. Agarwal has predicted that the third wave will see half the number of daily cases than the second wave.
However, he has also warned that the situation can get very bad, very quickly if a new strain of the virus emerges, just like the Delta variant alarmingly increased coronavirus cases all around the world and especially in India.
"We have created three scenarios. One is optimistic one. In this, we assume that life goes back to normal by August, and there is no new mutant. Second is intermediate one. In this we assume that vaccination is 20% less effective in addition to optimistic scenario assumptions," he explained in a tweet. "Third is pessimistic one. This has one assumption different from intermediate one: a new, 25% more infectious mutant spreads in August (it is not delta+, which is not more infectious than delta)."
He also explained that India is in a better position than the UK, which has been seeing a surge in Delta variant cases, as the second wave in the Asian country was caused majorly by the Delta variant, meaning "a lot of people are now immune against delta unlike UK".