India logs over 12,000 COVID cases: Why coronavirus surge isn’t Fourth Wave

India on Thursday logged 12,213 new coronavirus cases which took the country’s total COVID tally to 4,32,57,730. Eleven people died in the last 24 hours.

Now the country’s official COVID-19 death toll is 5,24,803. This is the first time in months that the country’s daily coronavirus figure has crossed the 10,000 mark. The country’s active cases also witnessed a rise of over 7,000 cases. As of today India has 58,215 active cases.

A surge has been observed in Delhi and Mumbai as well. On Wednesday, Delhi logged 1,375 new cases at an alarming positivity rate of 7.01 percent. The cases were 22.98 percent higher than on Tuesday. Delhi had reported 1,422 fresh COVID-19 cases and zero fatality on May 8, while the positivity rate was recorded at 5.34 per cent.

Mumbai on Wednesday reported 2,293 new cases, highest since January 23. The city’s positivity rate is a whopping 13.37 per cent.

However, despite the alarming figures, experts have not declared the surge ‘the fourth wave’.

The Delhi government hasn’t implemented the graded response action plan as the hospital admissions remained low. By Wednesday, out of 9,852 hospital beds, only 169 were occupied and none of the 954 Covid care beds had been occupied.

In Mumbai, the number of those hospitalized crossed the 500-mark. However, the growth rate of infections stood at .15 percent and the doubling rate dropped to 438 days on Wednesday. Of the total 24,861 hospital beds earmarked for coronavirus patients in Mumbai, only 516 beds were currently occupied.

Dr Samiran Panda, Additional Director General, ICMR, and head of its Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases, told the New Indian Express that the surge cannot be termed as the fourth wave as only a few districts are reporting cases and it is not a uniform phenomenon. Will it turn out to be a wave in the future? He said it depends on whether the surge is caused by a new variant or not. He also said that it isn’t a wave as the health services in the country are not burdened by the number of cases and hospitalisations. Dr Rajeev Jayadevan, co-chairman of IMA’s COVID-19 task force, said the increase in numbers is small and no new variant has been detected.

IIT-Kanpur researchers had predicted earlier this year that the fourth wave would sweep the country beginning June 22 and would peak on August 23. According to them, the wave will end in late October.