India on Monday (3/1/2022), recorded 33,750 cases of COVID-19, the highest in the last three months. Experts point to the possibility that India will face a third wave due to the rapid deployment of the Omicron variant.
Delhi authorities said 84 percent of the samples examined in the capital were Omicron cases.
Former chief epidemiologist of the Indian Council of Medical Research, Dr Lalit Kant, predicts the peak of the third wave in India could occur as early as March. It is likely that India will need tens of thousands of hospital beds (RS).
“The number of hospitalized patients is likely to peak in early March. The projection is that 33,000 hospital beds and 7,500 ICU beds will be needed,” said Dr Kant as quoted by CBS News, Tuesday (4/1/2022).
At the height of last year’s second wave India faced a ‘tsunami’ of COVID-19 cases driven by the Delta variant. Daily cases at that time reached more than 400,000 with deaths in the tens of thousands due to a collapsing health system.
The hope is that a similar incident will not be repeated with the Omicron variant. Given that now about 63 percent of the adult population in India have received the vaccine and the tendency of Omicron to cause milder symptoms than other variants.
Watch Videos “Listen! 7 Early Symptoms of Exposure to Variant Omicron“
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