COVID-19 cases are on a rise again, but Indians are likely to increase socialising and travelling: Survey

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COVID-19 cases are on a rise again, but Indians are likely to increase socialising and travelling: Survey
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  • While the fear of fourth wave of COVID-19 jitters, the month of March and April saw a significant uptick in people socializing, traveling, visiting friends, family and having get-togethers.
  • The survey revealed that 94% of the Indian families will have one or more categories of visitors coming to their homes in the next 30 days.
  • 9 out of 10 people said in another survey that people in their area/district are not wearing face masks or not wearing them properly.
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The COVID-19 tally has once again started to rise steadily in the last 15 days after a slowdown of approximately 11 weeks. People have also started moving freely as all the public places are now open including schools, colleges, and offices. Also, they have started socializing more with their friends and families.

Where India is recording a 90% rise in the test positivity rate from 0.31 on April 2 to 0.83% on April 18, the month of March and April saw a significant increase in socializing and travel as people visit friends and family, says a new survey conducted by LocalCircles, which is a community-based social network platform.

The survey revealed that 94% of the Indian families will have one or more categories of visitors coming to their homes in the next 30 days. Visitors can be the biggest source for the families getting infected, which can further lead to a massive rise in COVID-19 cases. According to the survey, visitors can be friends, families, relatives, domestic help, or service providers like delivery personnel.

On the other hand, 69% of the respondents said that they are likely to visit family, friends, and others within the next month.

The survey was conducted among 20,000 people from citizens residing in 309 districts of India.

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Globally, most experts have agreed on one thing COVID is likely to reach us much more through our trusted networks than through people who we do not have long interactions with.

As the COVID-19 cases were declining in February and March, 9 out of 10 people said in another survey that people in their area/district are not wearing face masks or not wearing them properly.

“With mask compliance and social distancing compliance non-existent, if a transmissible variant of Omicron started circulating, the risk of it spreading to a large number of people is very high,” says the report.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) had also raised an alarm regarding rising COVID cases globally despite testing levels dropping significantly. Many countries in Europe and Asia like France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands, Hong Kong, South Korea, Vietnam, and China are experiencing a huge surge in cases.

The spike in cases around the world is being driven by BA.2 variants, its sub-lineages like BA.2.2, the Omicron XE mutant, which is a BA.1 and BA.2 recombinant.

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India reported 2,067 new COVID-19 cases and 40 deaths in the last 24 hours. There are currently 12,340 active cases in the country with 1,547 people recovered in the last 24 hours.

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