COVID surge may fall after 10-12 days

NEW DELHI: Even as the country is witnessing a surge in new COVID-19 cases to record a seven-month high, official sources said the cases may keep rising for the next 10-12 days after which they would subside, as the viral infection was moving towards the endemic stage in India.

According to Union Health Ministry data updated on Wednesday, India registered a single-day rise of 7,830 new coronavirus infections, the highest in 223 days, and the count of active cases in the country has increased to 40,215. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu added 432 fresh cases and recorded one death – that of a 96-year-old man in Chennai on April 10.

Even though cases are rising, hospitalisation is low and is expected to remain so, said officials, adding that the current spike is driven by the XBB.1.16 sub-variant of Omicron. The prevalence of XBB.1.16 increased from 21.6 per cent in February to 35.8 per cent in March.

While Omicron and its sub-lineages continue to be the dominant variant, most of the assigned variants have little or no significant transmissibility, disease severity or immune escape.

The deaths due to the disease went up to 5,31,016, with 16 new fatalities being reported – two each in Delhi, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, and one each in Gujarat, Haryana, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, and five reconciled by Kerala – said the data updated at 8 am on Wednesday.

The 7,830 new COVID cases recorded on Wednesday morning is the highest single-day increase after 7,946 cases on September 1 last year. The overall number of cases now stands at 4,47,76,002.

There are 2,489 active cases in Tamil Nadu, of which 777 are in Chennai. The overall test positivity rate has gone up to 8.3 per cent, highest in Chengalpattu with 12.2 per cent.