Experts Warn Of Third COVID-19 Wave In Kerala As Cases Rise To Over 20,000 Per Day

Experts and epidemiologists are warning that the recent surge in cases in Kerala might signal the beginning of the third wave of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The Kerala state government has not officially called it a third wave but the experts say that after being in a plateau after reaching the peak of the second wave mid-May, the cases have been surging again. From 12,000-14,000 cases per day from 4 June to last week of July, Kerala has gone to 20,000 to 22,000 cases reported per day in the last six days.

"The surge indicates that this might be the beginning of the third wave and we need to be careful now. We have a large susceptible population and the government needs to come up with a long term strategy to deal with new COVID waves," public health expert and epidemiologist Dr Raman Kutty was quoted as saying by TOI.

With barely 3% of India's population, Kerala now has 51 per cent of the total COVID cases in the country and its seven-day average daily growth rate is 0.60 per cent, while that of the whole country is 0.13 per cent. The numbers can be expected to rise further in the Onam season.

"Unlike small nations, waves do not occur uniformly in a large country due to variation in factors such as travel, population density, socio-economic conditions, geography, weather, vaccination etc," said Dr Rajeev Jayadevan, vice-chairman, research cell, IMA (Kerala).

So far, only about 17 per cent residents of Kerala are fully vaccinated. The most dominant virus in Kerala is the dangerous Delta variant with 95 per cent samples tested from the state showing presence of the variant.

Also read: Coronavirus Third Wave Inevitable, Says Principal Scientific Adviser K VijayRaghavan: Why Do Pandemics Come In Waves?