Omicron cases may peak in January

Hyderabad: Omicron variant-driven Covid-19 infections are on the rise in major Indian cities, which could lead to a peak in January. However, it would still take a lot of time for the virus to spread to the entire country, researchers, who developed the noted SUTRA mathematical model for projecting pandemics, said. While the SUTRA model […]

Hyderabad: Omicron variant-driven Covid-19 infections are on the rise in major Indian cities, which could lead to a peak in January. However, it would still take a lot of time for the virus to spread to the entire country, researchers, who developed the noted SUTRA mathematical model for projecting pandemics, said.

While the SUTRA model had projected that Omicron-driven wave in the country could peak in the early part of March, given the high transmissibility of the variant, the peak of the wave could be even earlier in some parts.

“It is quite possible. Our projections are based on a number of assumptions. Peak may well shift forward. We have to wait for a couple of weeks to capture the trajectory in the model. A more precise prediction will be possible then,” Prof Manindra Agrawal, Computer Science, IIT-Kanpur, and member of SUTRA Consortium, said.

The SUTRA researchers, however, made it clear that India is far better placed at handling Omicron variant than countries of European Union, UK and US.

“The twin immunity acquired through natural infection and vaccine will play an important role. It appears that the natural immunity acquired due to prior exposure to the Delta variant is offering better protection than vaccination,” Distinguished Professor and SERB National Chair, IIT- Hyderabad and member of SUTRA Consortium, Dr M Vidyasagar, said.

The researchers of SUTRA Consortium also took to social medial platform Twitter to point out that that there could be a large number of unreported Omicron Covid-19 infections than the projected peak of 1.8 lakh to 2 lakh Covid infections.

“Every country is missing cases. For example, US detected 1 case in 4.5 and India detected 1 in 33 during earlier waves. However, reported cases are a better measure of hospitalization requirements. Unreported cases are mostly either asymptomatic or of people who are not interested in going to a hospital. Hence, projecting reported cases growth gives a better sense of severity of pandemic,” Prof Manindra pointed out.

In effect, when the Omicron variant driven Covid pandemic peaks, the country might have 55 to 60 lakh infections but majority of infections will go unreported because they are asymptomatic or less severe infections.

South Africa with a population of 60 million had only 25 per cent fully vaccinated individuals and booster doses were negligible.

The cases in South Africa peaked at 23,400 on December 17 and dropped rapidly. “Natural immunity in India and South Africa is significantly higher than countries in Europe and UK,” they said.

Also read: 

SII gets nod to develop jab against Omicron

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