Covid third wave wanes slower than rise in cases in Pune district
PUNE At the beginning of the third wave, daily Covid cases in Pune climbed up fast and reached peak within 25 days, a rise that had sent alarm bells among administration
PUNE At the beginning of the third wave, daily Covid cases in Pune climbed up fast and reached peak within 25 days, a rise that had sent alarm bells among administration. While the cases began to come down fast initially after the tally hit the peak on January 22 and plateaued for a week thereafter, the long tail is refusing to get thinner quickly in Pune district.
One January 1, the daily case load in Pune district stood at 620 which went up to 1,649 by January 4 and 3,668 by January 6. By January 14, it hit the 10,000-mark and reached 10,047, which further went up to 16,296 on January 22.
On the course of ebbing, the daily case load came down to 3,994 on February 1, which was Tuesday. The next day, cases went up again and stood at 5,827. However, it took almost 11 days for the tally to come down under 1,000-mark when on February 12, Pune district reported 998 cases. By February 15, the tally was 664, which went up again to 888 on Thursday (February 17).
One reason, according to experts, is Pune city continues to report higher cases than Pimpri-Chinchwad and rural areas. Dr Dilip Kadam, head, covid task force Pune division, said environmental factors could be responsible in delaying the complete waning of the third wave.
“Earlier as well whenever the respiratory disease came in the picture, they spread widely in Pune and stayed longer. Environmental factors could be playing a role in this. In Mumbai humidity is high, air is moist, minimum temperature higher and there is less difference between maximum and minimum temperature. On the contrary, in Pune air is dry, difference between minimum and maximum temperature is high. These factors are suitable for the multiplication of the virus,” said Dr Kadam, who added that even as cases are not coming down fast, the current Covid situation is completely under control and there is no reason to worry.
Dr Kadam pointed out that the other districts which have similar weather like Pune have seen slow drop in Covid cases, which was also observed after the second wave as well.
“In the districts which have similar weather of Pune like Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur, Nashik it takes time for the number of cases to drop. There are favourable factors here for the multiplication of the virus. In Konkan cases drop fast. The minimum temperature is higher in Konkan,” said Dr Kadam.
“Cases are going down. We can say that the third wave is going down based on numbers. In the next 15 days we will observe drop in cases as we had seen earlier. Let’s just hope that new variant won’t come into the picture,” said Dr Kadam.
Avinash Bhondwe, past president, IMA, Maharashtra state, pointed out that lack of Covid-appropriate behaviour could also be a contributing factor in this. “In rural parts all the Covid preventive measures are flouted. The number of tests in rural and urban parts have gone down. Huge gathering and crowding is being noticed at wedding ceremonies in rural parts. We have to remember that even if the Covid cases go down, preventive measures can’t go away,” said Dr Bhondwe.