HYDERABAD: With vaccinations picking up in the country, eminent Professor and Fellow of Royal Society Dr M Vidya Sagar of IIT-Hyderabad stated that a third wave of Covid-19 is highly unlikely to occur if India continues to administer 75 lakh and more vaccines every single day for next 100 days.
Speaking at a panel discussion held at the Public Health Innovations Conclave (PHIC) in Hyderabad on “Covid-19 vaccinations in India and the world”, he said: “Currently 60% of 94 crore adults in this country have been administered at least one dose. We have reached a half way mark in terms of vaccinating this adult population. Besides this, for the last few days we have been administering 75 lakh to 80 lakh dosages every day and at this speed, we need another 100 days to vaccinate 80% of the Indian adult population. By the end of this year we will achieve this.” “This can certainly prevent third wave, subject to correction and subject to how Kerala will handle their current wave,” he added.
Dr Vidya Sagar has been instrumental in creating the Sutra team which has been creating mathematical models to predict the trajectory of the pandemic in 20 countries, including India. He also explained that if at all a third wave was to occur, it could be either due to the Delta variant or a more infectious variant.
“If the Delta variant causes another wave, it is likely that daily cases during the peak will rise to 60,000 to 70,000 per day in the country, which is lower than the first wave peak. If it is a more infectious variant, the daily caseload will rise to 1.5 lakh cases a day, which will be more than the first wave but less than the second wave, and this will be less deadly and serious in nature due to the vaccines already giving us some immunity,” he added.