The current spike in the number of daily Covid-19 cases in India cannot be termed as the fourth wave of the pandemic, said ICMR’s Samiran Panda.
New Delhi: As several states in India are witnessing a rise in Covid-19 cases, the Indian council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Sunday (May 1, 2022) informed that recent data did not indicate the onset of a fourth wave of coronavirus infections, reported IANS.
The current spike in the number of daily Covid-19 cases in India cannot be termed as the fourth wave of the pandemic, Samiran Panda, Additional Director General of ICMR said.
This statement by the ICMC official comes amid a steady uptick in various parts of the world and the emergence of several new variants and recombinant strains.
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Panda said the surge has been observed at district levels, hence, it cannot be said that the country is moving towards a fourth wave.
“Some surges have been observed at district levels. This is called a blip… Blips are confined to certain geographical regions of the country,” he said.
He also gave four reasons in favour of the statement and explained why this is not the indication of a fourth wave. Read the explanations below:
1. The surge has been found at some local levels which is due to the testing ratio.
2. Secondly, what we see is just a blip and we cannot say that entire states are under the grip of Covid, said Panda.
3. Thirdly, there is no increase in the hospital admission across the country, he noted.
4. And last and the most important point to note is that no new variant has been found yet which indicates that there is no fourth wave right now.
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ICMR’s Additional Director General also talked about the rising positivity rate in several parts of the nation and said that sometimes the rate goes up because of low testing.
Meanwhile, India recorded 3,324 new Covid-19 cases, 40 deaths in the last 24 hours, pushing the total death toll to 5,23,843, according to the data released by the Ministry of Health on Sunday (May 1, 2022). The active cases stand at 19,092.
An increase of 408 cases has been recorded in the active Covid-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours. The country also recorded 2,876 recoveries today, taking the total number of recoveries to 4,25,36,253.
