What happened to India’s summer and autumn waves? After suffering a large surge with the emergent Indian variant (i.e., Delta) in the spring, India has defied modellers’ predictions by remaining very quiet since.
In August, Rajib Dasgupta, Chair of the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health at Jawaharlal Nehru University, wrote for the Conversation about the “likely” imminent new autumn surge.
With about 40,000 cases and 400 deaths each day as of mid August, a new uptick is likely in the cards. The Indian states experiencing most of these new cases are those with relatively lower sero-prevalence, ranging between 50% and 70%. The 400 million sero-negative pool – that is people who have not been infected or had the vaccine – continues to be a large vulnerable group.
Forecasting by modellers indicates a third wave beginning in August and peaking at 100,000 to 150,000 infections a day by October. An alternative projection expects the peak in cases going until November.
It’s October now and the reality, of course, is a low level of infections since June and no new surge throughout summer and autumn so far. Below is the graph showing the predictions from the modelling of Mathukumalli Vidyasagar and Manindra Agrawal of the Indian Institute of Technology that Rajib Dasgupta cites above. I have added in the line of actual ‘cases’, which shows that they have trended well below the ‘optimistic’ scenario since the moment the prediction was made.
The declining trend throughout the summer and autumn has been reflected in all of India’s states bar two: Kerala and Mizoram. (In the graph below, each line represents a state; Mizoram is the top one.) Kerala, which had the lowest seroprevalence following the Delta surge (44.4% in July, despite high vaccination rates, indicating lower infection levels), has had an extended period of higher reported infection rates over the summer, though is coming down now. Mizoram, a small state in north-eastern India bordering Burma, still has an anomalously high reported infection rate, the reasons for which are unclear.
The lack of a new surge either in summer or autumn when most of the rest of the world, including neighbouring Bangladesh, experienced one associated with the Delta variant is further evidence of the key role that variants play in driving surges. It is also evidence of the role of herd immunity in ending outbreaks, where herd immunity is to some degree variant-specific and partly disrupted by the arrival of a new variant.
While antibody levels were running high in India in July following the Delta outbreak, it’s not clear what the contribution to these was from infection and what from vaccination. It’s also unclear how sensitive the antibody tests were, making comparisons with other countries unreliable. One thing we do know is that when new daily reported infections peaked on May 8th, less than 2.5% of the population was reported to be double-vaccinated, and the number increased only slowly during the summer. This suggests that vaccination played little role in ending the outbreak. Vaccination has also not prevented new surges from appearing elsewhere in the world.
The lack of a successful new variant yet emerging anywhere to take over from Delta is one of the key features of the pandemic at the present moment. It makes predicting the course of events in the coming winter difficult. There will of course be a seasonal wave of a respiratory virus, as there is every year, and as in most years it will presumably spike in December and decline in January (the reasons for this consistent pattern are not fully understood – January is a colder month than December, after all – though it likely has something to do with herd immunity).
Some experts I have spoken to think it will be a mild winter, at least Covid-wise, as the combination of herd immunity, vaccines and the absence of a new variant limit the scope of the virus to do very much, even in the depths of winter. Others foresee a tough winter ahead as seasonal factors lower immunity and raise the herd immunity threshold, allowing Delta (or another variant) to surge again. (A number of these experts aren’t very convinced about how well the vaccines work, including against serious disease and death.)
Me? I’m more in the mild camp, owing to herd immunity (provided a new variant doesn’t show up to disrupt it), mainly from infection, though vaccines should give some protection against serious disease and death (how long for, and how they will cope with the winter, are uncertainties, however). I even wonder whether we might be surprised and see a different virus jump in there now that SARS-CoV-2 is coming up against more resistance and running out of tricks. But hedging my bets, I’ve said I think Covid positivity won’t go above 8%, which is 60% of last year’s winter peak (13.3% on January 4th). A less sanguine scientist friend has put his bet on anything above 8%, so it’s on. What are your predictions for the coming winter? Add them in the comments below.
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Those proclaiming to save the planet are the ones destroying nature the most. Always the way with socialists and their divine faith in authority.
I agree. I’ve commented for a while that often what is trumpeted as ‘environmentally friendly’ is often environmentally harmful. Say that to a climate zealot though and you can see them mentally sticking their fingers in their ears.
It’s worse their entire brain explodes and they just accuse the bird munching critic of being Hitler.
They destroy ecology on land. The Bird Choppers mangle some 500 birds p.a. per turbine it is estimated. Oceanic impact will the same. Ecology being destroyed, fauna disturbed and killed. All to save Gaia from the fictictious plant food-causes climate-theology. We as a society, are both stupid and corrupt.
Not to mention what the very large blocks of concrete that anchors them are doing to the land in terms of water drainage. As I’ve mentioned here before, part of a Lancashire village flooded a few years ago (it never had before). It was initially blamed on “global warming” until they discovered that the wind farm on the hill above had changed the water course, diverting it from channeling into the river on one side of the hill to channeling down a straight road and into the village on the other side.
I actually think most people are confused, distracted and highly trusting rather than stupid and corrupt.
No, they are simply stupid. Look how many took Death Jabs, it takes a heck of a level of stupidity to do that.
Perhaps someone should ask His Hypocritical Majesty of Windsor about the destruction of marine mammals by the windmills he is making a fortune out of, courtesy of British taxpayers.
Yet another outstanding article. Thank you.
‘Fifty years ago, environmentalists would have raised hell about a thousand dead whales and dolphins. Now they are part of the cover-up.’
Why?
Follow the money.
China pours money into lobbying via organisations like The Peoples Forum, a source of funding for many left of centre, including environmental, organisations.
That is why China’s fishing fleet plunders the world’s oceans without any of the protests once seen against, for example, Japanese whaling ships.
“[China] says its distant-water fishing fleet numbers roughly 2,600,” Ian Urbina, an investigative reporter and member of the High Seas Initiative Leadership Council at The Aspen Institute, pointed out in a Yale School of the Environment report.
“But other research, such as this study by the Overseas Development Institute, puts this number closer to 17,000,” he said in 2020.
Why this matters: In 2022, the East Asia Forum reported that “Chinese fishing fleets have trespassed into the waters of over 90 countries and depleted fish stocks.”
Two tier policing of the world’s oceans…..
In 100 years time, if there are still humans around? will they look back and say what a good idea it was to cover the surface of the planet with windmills and solar panels, or will they look back and rue the madness that lead to this ludicrous folly that very nearly wrecked the planet and killed many of it’s plants and animals?
As they negotiate their way round the huge junkyards of scrapped EVs, Windmills and Solar Panels that we failed to re-cycle will they say oh well never mind it had to be done to save the planet or will they wonder if there was something funny in the water that sent us all mad enough to engage in this planet wrecking folly?
The planet wrecking folly option.
Wall-E?
Ruling the planet, eh sorry I mean saving it, means Dolphins Whales Fish Birds Bats and any other creature that gets in the way may become casualties of war——The war on YOU?
You go back a few decades and it was all about the whales. They would give Norway and Japan a hard time. And you could understand it given their intelligence and the remarkable nature and complexity of their communication. Satan doesn’t care for whales and dolphins at all. He dislikes their frankness and carefree nature and he wants the seas depopulated except for monsters just like the land.
I wonder if the first peak has something to do with the exploration and seismic testing prior to the first windmills being put up?
Thanks Chris for keeping on the case and us informed.