‘Third COVID-19 variant in India’: What we know so far

  • Date: 26-Apr-2021
  • Source: Gulf News
  • Sector:Healthcare
  • Country:UAE
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‘Third COVID-19 variant in India’: What we know so far

Until two months ago, India's COVID-19 numbers were generally manageable. On February 16, 2021, for example, daily cases stood at only 11, 278, based on Johns Hopkins University data (7-day moving average). For a country of 1. 3 billion inhabitants, that's relatively miniscule. Till then, India's COVID cases had been on a downward slide “” an eight-fold drop from 93, 199 reported on September 16, 2020. For the period from February 21-23, 2021, India's viral reproduction number (R0) stood at a manageable 1. 02, according to Sitabhra Sinha, professor at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai. In terms of managing the pandemic, India was hailed as a "model" for the world. Perhaps, it was thought, there's something in the South Asian diet “” or maybe its biological heritage “” that kept the numbers down. That diet/Asian-heritage-helps-fight-COVID thesis couldn't be farther away from truth. The low numbers earlier amounted to the quiet before the storm. Here's what we know so far: India is in the midst of a "COVID storm". It has registered over 17 million cases as of April 25, 2021 (Sunday), overtaking Brazil in having the highest COVID numbers. Only in the last four days, the subcontinent recorded more