Covid-19 Second Wave: Trend suggests virus infections slowing down but end still far away

Even as the crisis of the second wave of Coronavirus continues in the country, the Covid-19 tally in the last fortnight hints that the peak of the second wave has already reached or will reach in the next few days. Even as the peak seems to have reached, the end of the second wave of Coronavirus in the country is still far. In addition to the visible fall in the number of cases in the last few days since the country clocked the highest tally of 4.14 lakh new cases on Thursday, the seven day average of the number of Coronavirus cases has also started declining for the first time during the second wave, the Indian Express reported.

The seven-day average criteria is a better set of data to rely on as it takes into account the daily fluctuation in the number of cases and gives a more accurate picture of the spread of the disease. The seven day average daily number of cases peaked on May 8 with 3.91 lakh and since then has declined to 3.75 lakh on May 8.

Potent signals from states

The state of Maharashtra which has remained the worst affected state of the country by the pandemic has shown a steady decline in the number of cases. It was more than three weeks before that the state recorded the highest daily Covid-19 tally of 68,631 new cases. After reporting the daily tally in the range of 60k and 50k for the past few days, the state has now started recording cases in the range of 40k. However, the decline in the state of Maharashtra has been compensated with the increase in the daily tally of Karnataka and Kerala with the former contributing the highest number of cases to the country’s tally.

Uttar Pradesh, which has the highest population in the country, was on an increasing trend at the end of April when its daily tally was going past 35000 new cases but since then has stabilised and even gone down below 30000 cases a day. The national capital which had been reporting a daily number of cases well past 20000 has now started registering a daily count well below 12000.

Despite all these positive trends, one should not miss the fact that Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and West Bengal seem to be heading towards a major surge and have the potential to push up the country’s tally further.

Active cases

Another signal of the plateauing of the number of cases is the fact that the number of active cases registered a decline for the first time in the last two months on Monday and Tuesday. Till April end, the active cases were increasing by 1 lakh every day but the increase has slowed down to about 10,000 a day with more patients recovering from the disease. As the new cases tally remains same or drop further and recovered patients number increases, the number of active cases is expected to come down in the coming days.

When will the second wave end?

From the record daily tally of 98000 cases during the first wave in the country, it had taken almost five months for the tally to reach 10000 cases a day. With the peak as much as four times higher than the first wave, the decline might also be more protracted and slow and can take up to months. Moreover, with many states in the country treading on a surge, the danger of overall cases in the country recording a surge remains a threat.