NEW DELHI: India could see the peak of the second wave of coronavirus cases by May 7, said Prof M Vidyasagar, government's mathematical modelling expert on Covid-19 case predictions.

“If you take the nation as a whole, our prediction is that we may see a decline coming by the end of this week, which is by about May 7. Cases should start declining, but different states will peak at different times. The nationwide and cumulative total is at the peak now or is very, very close to it," he said in an interview with India Today TV.

If the predictions hold true, it would be a huge relief for the country to cross the national peak of the second wave by this weekend.

"We take the seven-day rolling average because the daily numbers keep fluctuating. As a result, we should not just look at the raw numbers but also at a daily moving average. That number will begin to decline by the end of the present week," Prof Vidyasagar said.

Speaking about the situation in various states and the trend therein, Prof Vidyasagar explained that different states would attain their peak at different times, and see a decline in their cases, as is currently being seen in the case of Maharashtra.

“The second wave basically started in Maharashtra. States that are located far away from Maharashtra will see a slow peak and the decline will be slower. States that are closer to Maharashtra will attain their peaks soon and their graph will start declining sooner,” he said.

Asked if there could be states that would reach their peaks after May, Prof Vidyasagar said that’s unlikely.

“We are expecting the all-India total to peak by this week. Maximum by another 10-15 days, we expect every Indian state to peak and begin a downturn. There could be outliers as well. But by and large, that is what we expect,” he said.

Prof Vidyasagar said if one compares curves of the first and second wave, one would find that in the first wave the rise in cases was very gentle.

“It took about 3.5 months to reach the peak and the drop was equally gentle. In the second wave, on April 1 we had 75,000 cases and exactly a month later, we breached the 4-lakh mark. We expect that the decline will be more or less as rapid as the rise was. The nationwide caseload by the end of May should be something around 1.2 lakh per day.”

He however clarified that we are not going to see zero cases. “That’s something that is not going to happen.”