NEW DELHI: The prevalence of Covid-19 positive cases has risen rapidly in the last two weeks, with 77% citizens surveyed by Local Circles knowing someone testing positive in their close networks in the last 30 days. Of the 77% who have 1 or more people impacted with Covid, 36% now know over 5 individuals testing positive within the last 30 days.
On Wednesday, India reported 2,89,990 new cases, taking the country's total tally to 3.79 crore. The active cases have surged to 18,31,000, the highest in 232 days. However, a report by SBI Research said the third wave is likely to peak much earlier than anticipated and may take a maximum if three more weeks, even though the share of rural districts in new caseloads has increased significantly since December 2021.
The prevalence of positive cases has risen from 26 percent on January 3 to 40 per cent on January 10 and now to 77 percent on January 17.
36 per cent of the citizens surveyed now have over five or more contacts in their close networks impacted by Covid 19, while 41 percent said they have at least one more individuals in their close networks who despite getting all the symptoms did not get an RT-PCR test done. They instead opted for self treatment/ quarantine.
With the new ICMR guidelines encouraging healthy and mildly symptomatic individuals to not undertake the RT-PCR test, this number is only likely to rapidly rise, further understating the daily caseloads in India.
The survey received responses from 18,500 citizens across 312 districts of India.
Several states and Union Territories are on high alert after Covid cases surged over the past month by over 50 times despite many taking the home antigen test (not reported in the numbers) or skipping testing altogether. The surge in cases has led to states imposing different restrictions to minimize the spread of the virus. fever.
Many people are now preferring to either take the home antigen test or skipping the testing altogether treating Covid like regular viral fever. Many leading scientists around the world though are advising against this approach but it is being widely adopted in India now. 28% citizens now have 5 or more people in their close social networks who despite having symptoms skipped the RT-PCR test; this number was at 1% a week ago.
(With inputs from PTI)
