After a 2.5-month sigh of relief, Covid-19 cases are on the upsurge again in several parts of the country. Amid the XE variant, the Covid-19 cases in the country have risen by 35 percent over the last week. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, India recorded 2,183 new Covid-19 cases and 214 deaths in the last 24 hours. The active cases in the country currently stand at 11,542. The country’s daily positivity rate is 0.31 percent and the weekly positivity rate is 0.27 percent.
In a recent press event, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said Delhi, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh are the states where Covid-19 cases are seeing an uptick over the last few days. These states need to keep a careful watch on their caseload and need to take necessary steps to prevent the rise in Covid-19 cases, he added.
Which states are seeing a rise in daily Covid-19 cases?
Delhi
The national capital has recorded 517 new Covid cases in the last 24 hours. According to the Health Ministry, Delhi reported 12 percent higher cases from yesterday, taking the total number of active cases to 1,518. According to a recent survey, the number of persons in Delhi-NCR reporting someone in their immediate social network contracting COVID has increased by 500 percent in the last 15 days.
Haryana
Haryana on Saturday reported 202 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the active cases to 812. The positivity rate in the state has gone up to 3.18 percent. The daily count in Haryana has increased by four times on Sunday.
Uttar Pradesh
According to an official statement, the Uttar Pradesh government put all of the National Capital Region (NCR) districts on alert mode on Saturday in response to an increase in Covid-19 cases in Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddh Nagar. In all, 108 new cases were reported on Friday.
What are the possible causes for rising Covid-19 cases in the country?
The reasons for the rise in numbers in Delhi and Haryana are now unknown, but the most likely explanation is that it is due to the removal of the mask mandate and the lifting of all restrictions. According to Anurag Agrawal, former director of the Delhi-based Institute of Genetics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), the current increase in Delhi is in line with what would be expected if individuals stopped wearing masks and interacted more freely.
Schools and offices have reopened, travel has resumed, and most businesses have resumed full operations. It’s unsurprising that the number of cases is increasing as people connect more freely without any restrictions, he added.
Can India expect a fourth wave?
However, predicting anything about a new wave of outbreaks is hard. The virus’s evolution is a totally unpredictable and arbitrary process. And it appears that a new wave of infections in India will be triggered solely by the development of a new variation at this time. This is primarily due to the fact that the Omicron strain has already infected the majority of India’s population, and the population is likely to have developed some immunity against this variant.
Even though it’s unclear how long the immunity gained from the last infection will be effective but it will continue to last for at least six to nine months. This is also the reason for the nine-month gap in administering booster doses of vaccine. This indicates that most patients infected with the Omicron strain during the third wave would have effective protection for at least a few months longer. Unless, of course, a new dangerous variant is found floating in the population.