COVID-19: India sees 7 back-to-back days of surge as experts warn of third-wave hitting this month

India on Monday reported 40,134 new Covid-19 cases and 422 deaths as the tally of positive cases reached 3,16,95,958. India reported a rise in the number of cases for consecutive days over last week totalling up to 2,76,534 new infections compared to 2,67,680 cases the week before, according to Covid19india.org.

Kerala has reported the maximum surge during the past week. Kerala recorded 20,728 fresh COVID-19 cases yesterday, pushing the infection caseload to 34,11,489, while 56 more deaths took the toll to 16,837. It was for the sixth day running that the state has recorded more than 20,000 fresh cases. Similarly, Maharashtra, which faced the brunt during both the first and second waves of the coronavirus pandemic, too reported a major surge with 6,479 cases on August 1.

Meanwhile, a study by a group of researchers led by Mathukumalli Vidyasagar and Manindra Agrawal at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) in Hyderabad and Kanpur respectively have predicted that India may see a worsening of its outbreak as soon as this month, with the next wave peaking with less than 100,000 infections a day, in the best-case scenario, or nearly 150,00 in the worst scenario in October.

The researchers added that states reporting a high number of COVID-19 cases like Kerala and Maharashtra may play a significant role in "skewing" the case count during the third wave.

The top five states which registered maximum cases on Monday are Kerala with 20,728 cases, followed by Maharashtra 6,479 cases, Andhra Pradesh 2,287 cases, Tamil Nadu 1,990 cases and Karnataka 1,875 cases.