Nomura, a financial services firm said on Friday that the healthcare system could be overwhelmed if India′s daily Covid-19 cases followed the same trajectory as that in the United States. Daily cases could hit as high as three million a day due to the sudden surge in the Omicron-driven thirdwave. It also said that the caseload could be smaller at 740,000 a day if the per million infections are similar to South Africa.

Nomura said that in countries such as India, the Philippines and Indonesia, where only 45% of the total population were vaccinated healthcare systems could be overwhelmed due to the increasing number of people being infected with the Omicron variant.

According to the health ministry, the data updated on Friday stated that on Thursday, India′s daily case count had crossed 100,000, making the country’s total tally of Covid-19 cases so far to 35.2 million, including 3,007 cases of Omicron.

The firm cautioned that the firm sees growing macro risks for India going forward. The Third wave would result in lower growth and high inflation, which would push the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) into policy normalisation (repo rate hikes) from April onwards

It said that uncertainties had increased due to the emergence of the Omicron variant, but they could see Asia′s bumpy upcycle extending into H1 2022, supported by easing supply bottlenecks. It expected an export downturn to begin from mid-2022 reflecting lagged spill-over effects from a slowing China, normalisation of US goods demand, a moderation in the tech cycle, and ′bullwhip′ effects when small shifts in customer demand lead to increasing fluctuations along the supply chain due to distorted or exaggerated responses.

Source: The Economic Times