NEW DELHI: A study by the Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur’s (IIT-K) Professor Rajesh Ranjan, Mahendra Verma and team suggests that the peak of third wave of COVID-19 could hit around September-October this year. Professor Rajesh Ranjan and team provided daily COVID-19 forecasts for India at covid19-forecast.org.
The press statement said that there is confusion among people regarding the third wave and so using the SIR model, the team has come up with three scenarios of the third wave by using the epidemic parameters of second wave. First is that India will unlock till July 15, and the peak of third wave will hit in October which will be weaker than the second wave. Secondly, the peak can be higher than the second one and may end early in September. Third scenario is that the peak can be higher than the second wave and may appear in early September.
According to the study, the daily positivity rate of the nation has increased to 3.5 per cent. It also added that the current model does not include the rate of vaccination, which can decrease the peak significantly.