The Regional Task Force of the Lancet Commission on coronavirus released a new report about the second major wave of the pandemic in India. According to the report, this wave is different in two crucial ways from all preceding instances of COVID-19 spikes.
Firstly, the rate of infection is much higher than before. Because of this, we are seeing an alarming increase in new cases.
Secondly, the percentage of asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic cases is much higher than before. This means that more people are spreading the disease without even being aware of it. The report warns that fatality numbers and the number of severe cases are expected to surge with the spike.
The commission says that the fatality rate is currently lagging behind the infection rate as it usually takes time for patients to degrade in condition so far that it results in death. This means that a person who is infected today might die 4-6 months from now.
It is absolutely imperative that the spread of infection is stemmed so that the number of new cases starts to flatten out again.
A worst-case projection estimates that daily deaths to Covid-19 can climb to 1,750 a day, increasing further to 2,320 a day by the first week of June.
Central and state governments are being implored to aggressively vaccinate and immunise their at-risk demographics which include all citizens above the age of 45.
