The third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in India, caused by the Omicron variant which originated in South Africa, is evidently on a decline as the number of cases across the country has significantly reduced.

Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K) have predicted that a fourth wave of the virus may begin in India around June 22 and continue till October 24. Although the severity of the infection apparently depends on the emergence of new variants and the vaccination status of people, including the administration of a booster dose, as per reports. The curve also shows that the fourth wave will reach its peak between August 15 and August 31 and thereafter decline.

The researchers were quoted as saying, “Many countries have already seen the third wave and a few countries have started to face the fourth and higher waves of the pandemic. The third wave was predicted for India using the concept of a mixture of Gaussian distribution based on the data of Zimbabwe, and when the third wave in India is finishing it is now clear that the forecast was almost correct. Motivated by the study, we investigated the forecasting of a fourth wave in India.”