For India, Cambridge Tracker Predicts Intense But Short-Lived Third Wave With Omicron Variant

Cambridge India tracker, which had predicted the devastating 2nd Wave of COVID-19 pandemic to peak in May 2021, has announced another prediction vis-a-vis the country. In an email, Paul Kattuman, Professor at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge, writes, "It is likely that India will see a period of explosive growth in daily cases and that the intense growth phase will be relatively short." Kattuman led the team of researchers that has developed a Covid-19 India tracker (CIT). In the said email, he also writes, "New infections will begin to rise in a few days, possibly within this week." However, he has refrained from predicting how high the daily number of cases could go. Readers would remember that the CIT had earlier predicted that India would see a slowdown of Covid infections curve in August 2021 right upto the time of higher vaccination coverage. In another note, written by the team on December 24, pointed out six states as a "significant concern", with the number of states going up to become 11 in another note written on December 26. On Wednesday, India had added 9000+ Covid cases to its current tally while the total fatalities were about 4.8 lakh. With the Central government holding regular high-level meetings to take stock of the situation and devise future strategies, India gears up to prevent a repeat of April-May 2021 even as 781 Omicron cases have been identified so far. Meanwhile, Delhi government announced a Yellow Alert on Tuesday, closing down cinemas, schools, colleges, gyms, etc while introducing restrictions in public places as well as night curfew. With the vaccination providing the only relief in these dismal times, India crossed the 1 billion mark in administered vaccine doses in October.