Numbers Matter | Omicron wave: Is it the beginning of the end?

If these trends are to hold, then that means that India may be headed to a peak in the third wave in coming days. This would be in line with what several mathematical and epidemiological models have predicted to be the time that this wave would peak – early February

What started as trickle of new infections in the early weeks of December, the same time that India was reporting its first cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19, became a strong stream of rising cases primarily centred in Mumbai and Delhi by the end of the year. By the time 2022 started, the third wave had well and truly begun nearly throughout the country.

The phenomenon of the high growth rate dropping to a reasonable figure is generally a common sight before numbers peak in a region – it happened in Delhi days before the wave peaked there (REUTERS)

Even during India’s brutal second wave of infections, which ran through the country in March-May 2021, the country never saw cases increase at the rate that it did in early January. Such a high rate of increase in the Covid-19 curve has become synonymous with the Omicron variant across the world. The surges caused by this variant have been breaking case records across the world. But the flip (or the good side) of this surge has been two-fold: First, as more and more cases have emerged, scientists have realised that Omicron causes relatively milder symptoms (if any at all), leading to far fewer severe outcomes for cases; second, new infections dropping down as nearly as rapidly as they shot up.

The first of those Omicron characteristic was visible through the early outbreak centres (Mumbai, Delhi and other metros) through most of January. Even as cases soared, hospitalisation levels in the megacities remained a tiny proportion of what these cities saw in the Delta wave last year. According to data analysed by HT, nearly all of these cities never saw more than 20% occupancy in their hospital beds earmarked for Covid-19 patients. By mid-Jan, the occupancy rate had started declining as well. In Delhi, only 13% of beds (2,028 out of a total of 15,420) were occupied as of Thursday. In Mumbai, bed occupancy is currently only 7.7% (2,927 beds out of 37,827 available in the city are occupied on Thursday).

And while hospitalisations remained low (something which has been covered in previous editions of this column), it is now the second part of the Omicron characteristic has started playing out in the country.

In Mumbai, the seven-day average of new cases (a number that generally taken to denote a region’s case curve) has dropped for nearly two consecutive weeks now. This number peaked at 17,523 average cases a day for the week ended January 12, and has since already dropped 85% to 2,577 for the week ended Thursday. In Delhi, the infection curve touched a peak of 23,529 cases a day for the week ended January 15, and has since then dropped 67% to touch 7,857 cases a day for the week ended Thursday.

There’s a similar story in other metros as well. In Kolkata, the seven-day average of 857 on Thursday is an 88% drop from peak levels, while in Chennai, the figure on Thursday (5,552 cases a day) is a 34% drop from peak.

And while a drop of any magnitude is yet to be visible in the Covid-19 wave across the country, there has been a drop visible in the rate of growth of daily cases. For the week ended January 1, there was an average of 27,043 new cases reported in India every day, according to HT’s Covid-19 dashboard. Just a week later, for the week ended January 8, average daily cases had soared to 158,215 – that’s a monstrous 528% week-on-week increase in cases. For context as to how high this growth rate of cases is, during the second wave, this rate of increase never even went past 75%.

But in the past week, there have been an average of 294,022 new cases a day – an increase of only 4% from the number a week before. This phenomenon of the high growth rate dropping to a reasonable figure is generally a common sight before numbers peak in a region – it happened in Delhi days before the wave peaked there.

If these trends are to hold, then that means that India may be headed to a peak in the third wave in coming days. This would be in line with what several mathematical and epidemiological models have predicted to be the time that this wave would peak – early February.

In fact, news agency ANI reported unnamed officials from Union health ministry saying that they expect a steady decline in national case numbers from February 15, at the latest. “Covid cases in the country to decline after February 15. The cases have started reducing and stabilising in some states and metro cities,” the official was quoted as saying by ANI.

If all these trends hold, then India may be close to seeing the beginning of the end of the third wave of the pandemic.

The views expressed are personal