India has seen a sudden rise in the Covid cases following a spike in two states — Maharashtra and Kerala in the last few days. The national Covid tally crossed the 4,000-mark after nearly three months. The country recorded 4,270 Covid cases on June 5 and the tally rose to 4,518 cases on June 6. However, the cases marginally declined to 3,714 on June 7. In the last 24 hours, a total 1,194 more active Covid cases have been reported and the total number of active cases stands at 26,974 in the country. With the new rising cases, the Covid positivity rate has also jumped to 1.21 per cent in the country.
The maximum number of cases has been reported from three states – Kerala, Maharashtra and Delhi. In the last 24 hours, 1,383 cases have been reported in Kerala, 1,036 in Maharashtra and 247 in Delhi. In total, over 70 per cent of the total Covid infections have been reported from these three states only. However, the infections appear to be mild, so hospitalisation and fatalities are low. The Centre last week has written to Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala to continue monitoring the spread of the infection.
Is India heading towards the fourth wave of the pandemic? We cannot say for now. But according to some experts, the rise of cases in two states of Maharashtra and Kerala can be attributed to the environmental factors along with others. They also said that in order to reach new hosts, the virus needs to hitch a ride from one person to another. Droplets are the vehicles used by the SARS-CoV2 virus for this purpose. Essentially these are like drops of fluid, only smaller and lighter.
It is an established fact that respiratory viruses spread more during the monsoon season in tropical countries. Experts also opined that this is due to more efficient droplet-based transmission occurring between people during wet humid conditions. The other contributing factors in the rise of cases may be the Omicron sub-variants. It cannot also be denied that free mobility along with carefree attitude about Covid appropriate behaviour are the other contributing factors for the rise.
A sustained and significant decline in the number of Covid cases has been observed in India over the past three months. However, from the past one week, a slight upsurge in cases is being noticed. Even in Delhi, Covid cases are definitely increasing with the positivity rate rising to 3.47 per cent. But the important part is most of these cases are mild, there is hardly any hospitalisation and no mortality. This is not unexpected after the escalation of cases in Maharashtra in the last fortnight. There is a very good recovery rate with most of the patients experiencing short duration fever.
All we need to follow is the Covid appropriate behaviour. Rajesh Bhushan, Union Health secretary has recently asked the states to continue implementation of necessary measures to effectively tackle the upsurge in Covid cases. The Maharashtra government also on June 4 made the use of face masks mandatory in the state as the Covid spike continues. According to a public order, masks have been made compulsory in closed public spaces such as trains, buses, cinemas, auditoriums, offices, hospitals, colleges, and schools.
