PUNE: Additional director-general of the Indian Council of Medical Research (
ICMR
) Dr
Samiran Panda
on Friday said the third wave of Covid was likely to wane by February-end in Maharashtra, Delhi and West Bengal.
“The peak of cases encountered in these states will come down to the base level by the end of this month itself. An overall decline in Covid cases in the country is expected by March,” he said.
Epidemiologist Dr Chandrakant Lahariya also told TOI that the third wave across the country was expected to end in the next three-four weeks. “With
Omicron dominating 90% of the cases and
Delta
being only about 10%, the rise and fall in cases being witnessed is the trend across the world,” he said.
According to the mathematical model-based projection by the ICMR, the entire peak and fall in cases in these states would be achieved within this month. The chromic model developed by the ICMR and Imperial College London projects that India may reach the stage of endemicity of Covid by mid-March this year.
The overall disease epidemiology indicates that the epidemic is heading towards a stable situation. “If newer variants of concern of SARS-CoV-2 do not appear in future, things may get well under control. A shift is being noted from the epidemic to the endemic stage,” Dr Panda said.
He said the states and the districts registering a high number of cases by early January were now seeing gradual decline in infections. “We can say the surge will decline by the end of February,” he said.
The presentation of the central health ministry on Thursday showed that Maharashtra had registered a considerable decline in cases. It is among the 34 states registering a declining trend in Covid cases. Experts in the state, too, said the declining trend had commenced in most districts in the state.