India sees 41% spike in weekly COVID-19 numbers amid growing concern about fourth wave, no rise in deaths

New Delhi: Amid fears about the onset of a fourth COVID-19 wave, India has now reported an uptick in cases for the third consecutive week. Data from the Health Ministry indicates that the country reported around 22,000 fresh cases this week – up by 411% from last week’s tally of nearly 15,800. The death toll however has remained at the same level.

COVID-19 cases in India had begun rising in the first half of April after 11 weeks of steady decline. Between April 11 and April 17 the weekly numbers had reported a 35% hike, primarily due to a surge in cases from Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Last week (between April 18 and April 24) cases ha seen a 96% spike with these three states accounting for 68% of all new infections.

The steady rise in cases, even as new variants and recombinant strains were detected in India (and other parts of the world) has fuelled speculation that the country may soon find itself battling a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections. The Indian council of Medical Research however says that recent data does not indicate the onset of a fresh wave.

According to ICMR additional director general Dr Samiran Panda, recent trends only indicate localised spikes in some districts of India.

“What we’re seeing are blips and not the start of a new COVID-19 wave caused by a variant. These blips are currently restricted to certain geographies and not uniformly spread across the country, or a state,” he said.

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No fourth wave in India: ICMR says recent spike in COVID-19 cases are localised blips

India on Sunday reported a total of 3,324 fresh COVID-19 cases and 40 fatalities . With this, the active case load has now risen to 19,092. The active cases accounted for 0.04% of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.74%.