What should serve as a caution to all not to let their guard down, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Director Dr Randeep Guleria on Saturday said that the country is witnessing a second wave of virus infection in some of the regions and as a result the daily Covid-19 cases will continue to rise for some more months.
He said that the pandemic will continue till next year though the curve will be flatter instead of steep as being witnessed presently.
His comments come amid a sharp surge in the Covid-19 cases with India's Covid-19 tally crossing the 4 lakh mark and deaths standing at nearly 70,000 due to the infection.
India is the third worst-affected country globally by coronavirus with Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh accounting for over 62 per cent of the active cases in the country.
Even as Union Health Minister Dr Harshvardhan had recently said that Covid-19 cases will come down by mid-November, Guleria said that pandemic is likely to continue till 2021. “We can’t say that the pandemic will not spillover to 2021 but what we can say is that the curve will be flatter instead of rising very steeply. We should be able to say the pandemic is ending early next year,” Dr Guleria said. On being asked when Covid-19 vaccine will be developed, he said that if everything goes well, it will be ready by the end of this year.
Meanwhile, a senior Heath Ministry official said that the recovery rate in the country has touched a record high of more than 70,000 patients being discharged in a single day.
“ With this high number of Covid-19 patients recovering and being discharged from the hospitals and home isolation, the recovery rate now is 77.23 per cent. This has also led to the declining case fatality rate, which stands at a new low of 1.73 per cent today.
The daily testing capacities is on increase in the country. For two successive days more than 11.70 lakh tests have been conducted per day.
A total of 4 crore and 77 lakh tests have been done so far across the country.
There are now 1,647 testing laboratories operational which cover all States/UTs, said the official.
