The looming COVID-19 pandemic is showing a declining trend in India. However, the threat is not completely over now the new research conducted by Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT-K) researchers have predicted that the fourth COVID-19 wave may hit country in around June 22.
According to the research India is likely to witness the fourth covid-19 wave in mid to late June, and the surge is to continue for about 4 months. The research suggests that the severity of the wave will depend on the emergence of new variants, vaccination status, and administration of booster doses.
This IIT-K study has been published as a pre-print in MedRxiv and is yet to be peer-reviewed.
According to the researchers, the data indicates that the fourth wave of Covid-19 in India will arrive after 936 days from the initial data availability date, which is January 30, 2020.
“Therefore, the fourth wave starts from June 22, 2022, reaching its peak on August 23, 2022 and ends on October 24, 2022,” they said.
“Moreover, the 99% confidence interval for the date, when the curve will reach the peak, is approximately from August 15, 2022 to August 31, 2022,” the researchers added.
The study said that there is a good chance that a new variant of coronavirus may emerge and can have an intense impact on the whole analysis.
“The intensity of the impact will depend on various factors like infectibility, fatality etc,” the authors said.
This research was led by Sabara Parshad Rajeshbhai, Subhra Sankar Dhar and Shalabh of IIT Kanpur’s Mathametic department using a mixture of Gaussian distribution based on the data on Zimbabwe.