At least half of India’s population might be infected with the novel coronavirus by February 2021, a government committee tasked with providing projections told news agency Reuters on Monday. The report, however, also mentioned that COVID-19 infections in India have been decreasing after a peak in mid-September.
The number of new coronavirus infections reported daily in India today dropped below 50,000 for the first time in nearly three months, the data published by the Union Health Ministry has revealed. A total of 46,790 fresh infections and 587 fatalities were reported in a day. The overall COVID-19 caseload in India stood at 75,97,063 while the death toll climbed to 1,15,197. The total recoveries have crossed 67 lakh-mark while active cases of coronavirus infection remained below 8 lakh for the fourth consecutive day.
Meanwhile, a committee member said that about 30 per cent of the country’s population was currently infected with the virus and that could spiral up to almost 50 per cent by February, 2021.
“Our mathematic model estimates that around 30 per cent of the population is currently infected and it could go up to 50 per cent by February,” Manindra Agrawal, a professor at the Indian Institute for Technology in Kanpur and a committee member, told Reuters.
As per the report, the committee further went on to say that the cases could spike by up to 2.6 million infections in a single month if precautions and measures like social distancing and wearing masks are ignored.