Third wave peak likely in next 2 weeks, India's R-value dips: IIT Madras study

According to a preliminary analysis by IIT Madras, the third wave of Covid-19 is expected to hit peak in the next fortnight. The analysis says that the Covid-19 peak is likely to remain till February 6. The earlier prediction was that the peak of the third wave is likely between February 1 and February 15. The third wave is being driven by the Omicron variant and its sub-variant, BA.2.

IIT Madras has also said that India's R-value, which indicates the rate of spread of Covid-19 virus, has further reduced to 1.57 in the week from January 14 to January 21. A pandemic is considered to end if this R-value goes below 1.

The preliminary analysis was done by computational modeling by IIT Madras' Department of Mathematics and Centre of Excellence for Computational Mathematics and Data Science headed by Prof Neelesh S Upadhye and Prof S Sundar. 

What is R-value

R-value indicates the number of people an infected person can spread the disease to. 

IIT Madras recorded the R-value at 1.57 between January 14 and January 21, 2022.

The R-value was recorded at 2.2 in the week between January 7 and January 13, 2022.

The R-value was recorded at 4 from January 1 to January 6 and 2.9 from December 25- 31. 

The R-value of Mumbai was recorded at 0.67, Delhi 0.98, Chennai 1.2 and Kolkata 0.56. 

The R-value of Mumbai and Kolkata shows that peak is over and it is becoming an endemic.

For Delhi and Chennai the R-value is still close to 1 and is far from over in these metros.