COVID-19: Positive cases in India seems to stabilize; Experts explain the reason

Coronavirus cases in are India nearing one crore-mark and experts have pointed out that the transmission may be more than we know about it. After the festive season, elections across states, relaxations in norms as well as nationwide protest by farmers, COVID-19 cases that are being reported on a daily basis are below 50,000. The number of new cases have been steadily declining for over a month and for the last two weeks, the number has remained under 40,000. But there is something that has irked the health experts as they believe that the transmission among people, in reality, is much higher than what it is expected.

A report by The Indian Express citing health experts noted that one logical way to explain is that the number of people who have the infection may be much higher than they currently know of and it is likely that more than the half of Indian population has been exposed to the novel Coronavirus. According to Manindra Agarwal of IIT Kanpur, 55 per cent of Indian population might have been exposed and none of the sero surveys conducted caught large numbers. The government has appointed a committee to develop a supermodel that will trace the trajectory of the disease in India. It was noted that in mid-October, the Coronavirus outbreak had peaked already and will run its course by February 2021.

A virologist and director of Trivedi School of Biosciences at the Ashoka University- Shahid Jameel also claimed the possibility of actual prevalence of disease being much higher than what it has been recorded by the sero-surveys. Jameel highlighted that the last sero survey conducted pointed out transmission among people to be 15-16 times higher than the confirmed cases. This means that so far, if 10 million cases have been confirmed as of now, about 150 to 160 million people might have contracted the infection. Jameel added that it is also possible that the COVID-19 outbreak moved much faster than what the experts were able to record. If that is the case, 400 or 500 million are being projected to actually have had the infection. Therefore, Jameel stressed it will be a good idea to call for another broad sero-survey.

This statement has been made on the possibility that as the number of exposures increased, the virus may have lost some of its virulence, however, there is no particular evidence for it.

Meanwhile, Kerala and Maharashtra have been reporting around 4,000 to 5,000 cases a day each, contributing to the majority of cases coming in India in one day.