At present, India is seeing a spike in daily coronavirus cases with more than 50,000 new infections reported over the past 24 hours. As per a report by SBI’s research team, the entire duration of the second wave might last up to 100 days counted from 15 February.
Key Points
- This report by the SBI research team has been authored by the bank’s chief economic adviser, Soumya Kanti Ghosh.
- As per the report, India is better placed this time to control the pandemic with vaccinations gaining pace.
- The report suggested that increasing the speed of vaccination is the only way to win the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.
- According to the Union Health Ministry data, in the last 24 hours, 53,476 new coronavirus infections have been reported. With this, the nationwide COVID-19 tally has reached 1,17,87,534 cases.
- The active caseload has seen an increase for the 15th day in a row and was recorded at 3,95,192.
- Meanwhile, the total number of vaccinations in India has crossed 5.3 crores.
- India is seeing the second wave of infection from February 2021 and the cases are rising day by day.
- Pan-India total cases in the second wave expected in the order of 25 lakhs (based on trends in data till 23-Mar). As per the report, considering the number of days from the current level of daily new cases to the peak level during the first wave, India might reach the peak in the second half of April.
- At present, Maharashtra alone accounts for the majority of the daily new cases.
The report said that localized lockdowns/restrictions have not resulted in controlling the spread of infection. Mass vaccination is being seen as the only hope. The report cited a study from the Great Pandemic flu of 1918-19.
