New Delhi: World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this week that the world was in early stages of a third Covid-19 wave. Several studies, including one by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), found the third wave could hit India by August end. But a deeper look at Covid data tells us that the third wave has already hit India.

On July 7, India saw active cases rising in the country after 55 days. The day saw an addition of 784 active cases with the total active caseload burden going slightly up to 460,704, data released from the Union Health Ministry showed. And the second rise came just within a week, on July 14, when, this time, active cases went up by 2,095. Data released by the Health Ministry recently showed 73 districts still have a positivity rate of over 10%. This means 10 people turning out positive from 100 tested and 47 of such districts are in northeast India.

The stabilising trend in Covid-19 cases can be confirmed by regular and rapid fall in the weekly drop in the active and daily cases in last two months. Dr VK Paul of Niti Aayog has said that the slowdown in fall in cases is a warning sign.

Active caseload burden came down by 22.61% in the week ended on May 27 and the fall saw further decline in the next two weeks, by 30.18% and 31.44% between May 28-June 3 and June 4-10 weeks respectively. But from then on, the country started witnessing a dangerous signal – the rate of fall of active cases rapidly came down week after week.

The week that ended on June 24 saw a drop of 23.26% in the active Covid-19 caseload burden that got further reduced to 16.84% in the week ended on July 1, 10% in the week ended on July 8 and 6.17% in the last week ended on July 15 with India’s current active caseload burden at 4,30,422 cases.

(With Agency Inputs)