Spike in cases, masks mandates, new SOP’S and Experts on 4th wave in the country

Experts caution citizens and government against Covid SOP’s relaxation citing increasing cases.

Cases and Curb:

India recorded 2380 new Covid cases and 56 deaths in last 24 hours ending Thursday, 8 A.M. with active case load of 13,433. According to union health ministry daily positivity rate recorded in India in the last 24 hours was at 0.53 per cent and the weekly positivity rate as 0.43 per cent. According to @COVIDNewsByMIB 186.90 crore vaccine doses have been administered so far.

Amid a spike in COVID cases Delhi government brought back mask mandates again after a meeting with DDMA officials. Violation of mask mandate would invite fine of 500 INR. A Delhi government said, “Schools would continue to remain open but a fresh SOP’S would be released soon”. Capital has seen 7.7x rise in Covid cases in last 3 weeks, with 1009 new Covid cases in last 24 hours.

UP government also brought back mask mandates in Lucknow and 6 other NCR districts such as Gautam Buddha nagar, Ghaziabad etc.

Experts of Spike in cases-:

A researcher Institute of Mathematical sciences, Chennai sitabhra Sinha told PTI that The Country’s R-value, steadily increasing over the last few weeks, is 1.07 for the week between April 12-18. It was 0.93 the previous week. She also said it was mid-January, last time the R-value was above 1.

But another medical expert Dr Gangakhedkar, ex- head scientist at ICMR, while talking to ANI said, “I don’t think this is the 4th wave. The entire world continues to witness BA.2 variant affect people across the world. Some of us have misunderstood mandatory use of a mask which has been withdrawn means no fear of acquiring infection.”

He also said, “No new variant has emerged so far. Those who are older, those who have not taken vaccines, those who have got infected so far, need to remember to use a face mask”.

The IIT Kanpur’s research team that had previously predicted the 3rd wave of pandemic) said India will witness 4th COVID wave in June earlier, several experts are of the view that there is no logical scientific, epidemiological, virological reason to predict a 4^th wave, but nobody can predict that it will not happen.