Government reaction to SBI’s August prediction of Covid-19 3rd wave

Union health department Lav Agarwal said that the waves are not the challenge. He gave this response while reacting to the SBI research report that the Covid-19 third wave will arrive in August and peak in month of September.

“Waves are more of a post-facto analysis of what is happening in the system. Waves are the interaction between the virus and the human. Waves will come, the virus will be mutated, people will develop immunity and the impact of a wave will depend on all these factors,” Agarwal said on Tuesday.

“The first challenge is that we have not yet closed the second wave. And the next challenge is human behaviour — by the time a possible future wave comes at all, how much we can mitigate the impact of it through our behaviour, by maintaining social distancing, by adhering to containment rules etc., is the challenge,” Agarwal said.

“If we see Covid-19 cases are increasing at any particular area, we should be able to contain the spread of the infection by imposing immediate restrictions,” the secretary said.

“Instead of saying X study told this, Y study told this, what is critical is containing the infection whenever there is any surge in any part of the country,” Agarwal said.

Northeast states are reporting a higher number of infections even after the Covid-19 situation in the country has improved.

There are 73 districts in the country which are reporting more than a 10 per cent test positivity rate.

Director-general of the Indian Council of Medical Research Dr Balram Bhargava said, “Close watch on the test positivity rate should be maintained. This helped us during the second wave as well. The moment the case positivity rate reaches beyond 10 per cent, those places need to be investigated and contained.”

There is a threat of third wave of Covid-19 in India. Reuters poll predicted that the third wave of the pandemic will come by October, SBI Research has claimed that the cases will start rising by August.