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Nearly after a month, the daily caseload of Covid-19 has crossed the 2k mark in the country. A Cambridge Health Centre prediction shows the caseload of 2k is here to stay in the last week of April, signalling an uptick in virus activities in the country.
On March 17, 2022, the daily caseload in the country was over 2.9k. Since then, and up to Apr 16, the new positive cases in the country meandered in the range of around 1k. But the cases doubled from April 19 onwards.
Against the backdrop of the shooting graph, the Cambridge Centre for Health Leadership and Enterprise released its latest prediction on Wednesday.
As per the report, the daily caseload in the country that was hovering at around 1000 per day since April 1, will henceforth report in the range of 2k in April last week. The spike in Covid cases in the country is documented by the report as it found the filtered daily growth of new cases in the country growing at 4.3 percent from April 16.
The consequence will be, it says, the daily caseload will double in the country in the coming week.
Dominant Variant
The GISAID data shows Omicron is still the dominant variant in the country. In the last 28 days, over 97 percent of sequenced genomes in the country were confirmed as the B.1.1.529 and BA 2 sub-variants.
No new variant caseload witnessed in the country to date.
A total of 465 genomes sequenced in Odisha during the above mentioned period have been confirmed as Omicron.
Hotspot States
As per the data available with Union Health Department, Delhi leads the table with a count of 632 new cases on April 20.
The other states that have shown a spike in the last 15-days are given below.
- Kerala - 488
- Haryana - 249
- Uttar Pradesh -- 159
- Maharashtra -- 137
- Mizoram -- 125.
Moreover, during the week 12 April - 18 April, the following are the districts that had over a 10 percent positive rate.
- Kerala -14 districts have a weekly positive rate (WPR) of 14-29 percent.
- Lower Dibang Valley in Arunachal Pradesh has a WPR of 35 percent, the highest in the country.
- Mizoram (7 districts) where the WPR is over 10 percent
- Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, and Haryana (1 district each).
- Though Delhi leads in daily caseload in the country, the WPR is measured between 5-7 percent.
- A total of 5 states (Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Assam and Haryana) have one district each with over 5 percent WPR.
Cambridge Forecast
The forecast made by Cambridge Centre for Health and Leadership (CCHLS) shows that cases are on an uptick in Delhi, Haryana and UP. The Centre couldn't estimate the growth in Kerala as the Kerala govt, as per CCHLS, had stopped publishing daily data on April 11, 2022.
"Delhi (13.1% per day), Haryana (12.5% per day) and Uttar Pradesh (14.8% per day) are currently experiencing extremely high daily growth rates of reported case numbers and also have non-negligible daily case numbers. Case numbers remain very small in other Indian states," the report observed.
Odisha Scenario
Data indicate no worrisome trend in Odisha as of now. Though the new cases have been hovering around double digit (10-28) number from April 5, the daily test positive rate has been very negligible.
Odisha Vs Delhi
As per Odisha Health Department, the State conducted over 17,834 tests on April 18, 2022. The RTPCR accounts for a share of over 42 percent. And the daily test positive rate has been around 0.089 percent.
On the contrary, as per Delhi government health bulletin, a total of 6,942 tests were conducted. the number of positives stood at 501. the daily TPR stood higher at 7.2 percent.
The above comparison shows despite conducting tests nearly 3-times that of Delhi, the daily TPR in the State has been only a fraction.
Fourth Wave Knocking?
A study of recent surges in many European nations, including UK, reveals that the surge there had been brought by BA.2 sub-variant. The surge has been linked to the passing of up over 6 months post-vaccination and relaxing of Covid-19 guidelines, like masking. The US epidemiologists have also expressed concern. Recently, there is a buzz that Biden administration will go on appeal against the ruling that voided mask mandate in public transport.
Amid such murmurs around the globe, the rise in some states in the country mentioned above can also be seen in the context of the completion of over 6 months iof full vaccination n nearly 80 percent of the population there, and the recent relaxation of mask mandate in Delhi, Maharashtra, Haryana etc.
The surge calls for caution here as giving the virus a host to circulate may pose the risk of giving birth to a new recombinant or mutant that could trigger the 4th wave in the country.
