Third Covid wave peak in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra this week

New Delhi, Jan 18: The Omicron-led third wave of COVID19 likely to reach its peak in Haryana, Gujarat and Maharashtra this week, as predicted by IIT's Sutra model on coronavirus.

In a series of tweets, the IIT Professor said, "There appear two plausible reasons for this: 1) there are two groups in the population, one with less immunity against Omicron and the other with more. The mutant first spread in the first group causing a sharp rise. Now the first group is exhausted and so the spread is slower."

"Second, there was a lot of concern when Omicron started spreading, but in the last week or so, people almost everywhere have concluded that it causes only mild infection and have decided to handle it with standard remedies instead of getting tested," he further said.

"In Maharashtra, it is predicted to peak on 19th. May peak sooner since the trajectory is almost flat at present. Gujarat is predicted to peak on the 19th. Haryana is predicted to peak on 20th," he added.

He further said that southern states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu will see the current wave peak next week.

"In Karnataka, the COVID-19 wave is predicted to peak on 23rd. A new phase just started and Tamil Nadu has been predicted to peak on 25th Jan. Trajectory has started deviating. Andhra Pradesh is predicted to peak on the 30th. No deviation yet from the predicted trajectory. Probably because of the spread in at a very early stage," he tweeted.

"However, Haryana is predicted to peak on the 20th. Now to some states like Assam is predicted to peak on 26th Jan. No phase change yet, but the blue curve is suggesting there will be one soon," he added.