The third wave of Covid-19 presumably be just as severe as the second wave and can last up to 98 days, said an SBI Ecowrap report.

Citing international experience, the report estimated that the intensity of the third wave won't be much different than the second wave. The report comes as India prepares for a likely third wave of the pandemic.

The second wave of the pandemic, which is now on the wane, caused unprecedented devastation with single-day cases reaching as high as 4.14 lakh. India recorded nearly 90.3 lakh Covid cases in May, by far the highest monthly count reported in any country so far. India also registered over 1.2 lakh deaths due to Covid in May alone.

The report said that in the third wave, the total number of deaths can be reduced to 40,000, if serious cases decline to 5 percent. In the second wave, the serious cases were as high as 20 percent of all infections. It added this can be done by ramping up health infrastructure and rigorously expanding the vaccination drive. Currently, just over 12.3 percent of the people have received at least one dose of the vaccine while 3.27 percent have been fully vaccinated.

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