COVID-19 Fourth Wave Likely To Hit India Around June 22, Warns IIT Kanpur

According to the researchers, the data indicates that the fourth wave will hit India after 936 days from the initial data availability date, that is January 30, 2020.

New Delhi: A recent research by the scientists of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur suggested that India is set to witness a fourth COVID wave sometime around mid-June and is likely to stay for about four months. However, the severity would depend on the nature of the variant and status of vaccination across the country.

The study, conducted by Sabara Parshad Rajeshbhai, Subhra Sankar Dhar and Shalabh of IIT Kanpur's Mathematic department, has been published as a pre-print in MedRxiv and is yet to be peer-reviewed. As per the research, the fourth COVID wave is likely to set in around June 22 and continue till October 24.

According to the researchers, the data indicates that the fourth wave will hit India after 936 days from the initial data availability date, that 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 and also added, “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," Mint quoted the researchers as saying.

As per the study, there is a chance that a new variant of the COVID virus may have an intense impact on the whole analysis and the intensity of the wave will depend on various factors such as infectibility, fatality, among others. 

Apart from that, the effect of vaccinations - first, second or booster doses - may also play a significant role on the possibility of COVID infection, degree of the infection and various issues related to the fourth wave, the scientists added. 

Another recent study has shown that the next COVID variant can emerge in two different ways and there is no guarantee that the new variant will be less severe than the previously identified ones.

The first possibility is that the Omicron would continue to evolve, creating some sort of Omicron-plus variant that is worse than BA. 1 or BA.2, and the second possibility is that a new, unrelated variant might appear, said Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle.

Meanwhile, India on Sunday reported 10,273 fresh COVID cases, 20,439 recoveries, and 243 fatalities over the last 24 hours.

The new coronavirus infections took the total tally to 4,29,16,117, while the active cases dipped to 1,11,472.