What a difference a month can make.
On March 20, India’s seven-day rolling average of new cases was approx. 34,000. On April 20, that number hit 248,900. While previous COVID-19 hotspots like the United States and Brazil have seen their daily averages moderate over the past month, India’s case curve has gone vertical, and all indications are that the worst is yet to come.
Analysis
A dangerous new variant emerges
The steepness of India’s case curve is conspicuous, especially when compared to the country’s first wave. Many believe that the growing prevalence of variant cases is the culprit, namely the B.1.617 strain, which was first identified in Maharashtra in December 2020 and now accounts for over 60% of the cases in some parts of the state. The variant combines two different mutations that have been observed in other strains but had hitherto not occurred in the same variant. The resulting strain’s increased virulence would seem to be confirmed by the recent explosion of cases in India. There are also fears that the strain might have achieve some degree of ‘immune escape’ that lessens the effectiveness of vaccines, but testing is still ongoing.
B.1.617 has also been detected in the UK and the United States as of February, along with New Zealand, Nigeria, and Singapore.
India now the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic
The swiftness and severity of the second wave clearly came as a shock to Indian policymakers, many of whom believed they had perfected their public health playbook during the first wave.
Some points that illustrate the severity of the present crisis:
- India’s test positivity is doubling every 14 days; its caseload is doubling every 10 days, and deaths every seven days.
- The severity of the second wave can’t completely be blamed on the B.1.617 variant. The recent surge also coincides with the reopening of the economy and lifting of bans on large-scale political and religious gatherings. During one such religious festival alone an estimated 3.5 million people gathered on the banks of the Ganges on March 11.
