Researchers in State for reading IIT-Kanpur’s paper on fourth wave ‘with caution’

They are sceptical because the predictions are solely based on statistical models

While an IIT-Kanpur study has predicted a fourth wave of COVID-19 in the country from June to October, three experts in Karnataka that the State’s Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) consulted on this possibility are sceptical of the study.

The paper by researchers from IIT-Kanpur forecasts that the fourth wave of COVID-19 in India will arrive after 936 days from the reporting of the first case, which is January 30, 2020. Therefore, the fourth wave starts on June 22, 2022, reaching its peak on August 23, 2022, and ends on October 24, 2022, according to the paper.

As the same team from IIT-Kanpur had precisely predicted the third wave of Omicron variant in January–February 2022, the State’s TAC had sought an expert review on the paper by Rajesh Sundaresan from IISc, Siva Athreya from Indian Statistical Institute, and TAC member Giridhar R. Babu from the Public Health Foundation of India. 

According to the expert reviews, the IIT-Kanpur’s paper suffers from several limitations. “As the predictions are solely based on statistical models, they should be read with caution,” the experts have opined.

The TAC deliberated upon the expert reviews at its 161st meeting held on March 16 and recommended the State to adopt a cautious approach irrespective of the paper’s limitations.

Prof. Sundaresan has said the paper uses Zimbabwe as the training data since “Zimbabwe and India have the maximum visible similarities in the shape of the COVID waves”. 

“But Zimbabwe and India have very different vaccinated populations. Roughly, 30% have taken at least one dose and 23% two doses in Zimbabwe. The situation in India is vastly different (where vaccination is 70% first dose and 59% second dose). These higher vaccination numbers may significantly delay a fourth wave and may result in a different wave width,” he said.