Children could be the next vulnerable group and vaccination for them should be speeded up
(Asian News Hub) – The third wave of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in India could be as intense as the second wave and it could last for an average duration of 98 days, according to a new report released by the State Bank of India (SBI) June 1, 2021.
However, the impact can be minimised if the number of serious cases are arrested by prioritising two things — improvement in health infrastructure and vaccination, it added.
The report pointed out that the average duration of the third wave for developed countries was 98 days and that of the second wave was 108 days.
However, it is also observed that in the third wave, if we are better prepared, the decline in serious case rate (patients that require oxygen, intensive care unit beds, etc) will lead to fewer deaths. We find that if serious cases decline from 20 per cent to 5 per cent (due to better health infrastructure and rigorous vaccination) in the third wave, the number of deaths in the third wave could significantly reduce to 40,000, as compared to the current deaths of more than 0.17 million.
It also warned that children could be the next vulnerable group and that vaccination should be the key priority, especially for them.
“With around 150-170 million children in the 12-18 age bracket, India should go for an advanced procurement strategy like that adopted by developed nations to inoculate this age-group,” the SBI Ecowrap report said.
The SBI economists slashed the gross domestic product growth estimates for (financial year) 2022 to 7.9 per cent, from the earlier projection of 10.4 per cent. But it has not taken into account the possibility of a third wave in its analysis.
Meanwhile, India continues to record over a 100,000 cases per day. In the last 24 hours, India recorded 132,788 new COVID-19 cases and 3,207 deaths. Tamil Nadu added the maximum cases (26,500) to the country’s case load, followed by Kerala (19,760) and Maharashtra (14,123).
The total number of active cases stands at about 1.79 million right now.
