India's COVID-19 Third Wave: When Will It Peak and End?

Amid sharp rise in COVID cases, the one question on everyone's mind is – when will this wave peak and end?

Omicron has supercharged the caseload in India, from just a little under 7,000 daily cases on Christmas last month to over 2.4 lakh cases reported on 13 January, the highest rise in this wave so far.

(Photo: Aroop Mishra/The Quint)

Amid the sharp rise in COVID-19 cases across the country, the one question on everyone's mind is – when will this wave peak and end?

Omicron has supercharged the caseload in India, from just a little under 7,000 daily cases on Christmas last year to over 2.4 lakh cases reported on 13 January, the highest rise in this wave so far.

What is also concerning about this wave is the gradual rise in COVID-19-related deaths in the country, with Delhi alone reporting 40 deaths on 12 January, pushing the national tally to 177.

While there are some signs that the wave may be ebbing in a few regions, with hotspots like Delhi and Mumbai reporting a decline in cases between 7-11 January, such indications may be premature since they also reported a sharp rise the following two days.

Experts and modellers have pointed at the timelines of a peak and end of this wave and in this episode, we will try to unpack exactly where we are in this pandemic and what the trends indicate so far.

For this, I am joined by our regular guest and friend of the show Dr Chandrakant Lahariya, who is an epidemiologist and health systems expert and Dr Bhramar Mukherjee, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan.