Predictions for India about Covid-19 Infections

In this article we estimate and quantify the number of corona affected cases and highlight it in the context of complete lock-down. We also show through data and analyses the consequence of inaction and we speculate the number of calamities with and without the Janata curfew. Finally, we do predictive modelling for future and estimate the total number of deaths.

14th March: Number of Covid-19 cases was 102 in India. Media raised alarm and started a widespread literacy about essential steps that are to be taken, like regular hand-wash and social distancing. Less number of Covid-19 cases led to a denial of the threat in some sections of the society leading to exponential growth of the virus.

In Delhi, shutdown of schools, colleges, and cinema halls was declared and this shutdown was initially planned to be till 31st of March. Further, the government started disinfecting all the public places, including government, private offices and shopping malls.

22nd March: 396 cases were observed till this date and the announcement of ‘Junata Curfew was made’, which is a 14 hour voluntary public curfew at the instance of the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. The government followed it up with lockdowns in 75 districts where Covid-19 cases had occurred as well as all in major cities. During the period of lockdown a further 103 cases were reported owing to the incubation period lag as will be discussed in the following section of this article. Lock-down couldn’t contain the virus entirely, but hugely slowed the growth of this virus.

24th March: 536 cases were tested positive till this date and the Prime Minister ordered a nationwide lock-down for 21 days, affecting the entire 1.3 billion population of India. This reduced the social contact structures greatly.

All existing visas, except diplomatic, official, UN/International Organizations, employment, project visas, stand suspended till April 15, while Indian nationals are strongly advised to avoid all non-essential travel abroad. On their return, they can be subjected to quarantine for a minimum of 14 days. This reduced the social contact pattern, otherwise the situation would have been much worse by know, depicted in the figure (below) “Comparison of cases with and without lockdown.”

Based on these developments, for the mathematical analysis, the timeline in India is considered in the following steps:

I.Initial phase till mid-March, when the corona virus increased rapidly

II.Phase when self-isolation and social distancing were advised heavily until the complete lockdown which was implemented from 25th of March.

III.Phase after the complete lockdown was announced

Important Metrics

Death Rate: This is defined as the number of deaths / confirmed cases. This metric is of importance as the death rate is merely 2% for the virus, but more fatal for elderly people and those having other complications. But this increases as the number of infections goes up, this can go up to 10% and in a country having a population of 134 crore, 10% death rate phase has to be avoided at any cost

Insights:

1.This represent the death rate of Italy over the time, which shoots up as soon as Italy crosses a figure of 12,000 COVID 19 patients

2.The death rate reaches as high as 10% and is dependent on the percentage of the elderly people and number of beds per 1000 citizens.

3.Number of beds per 1000 people in Italy is 3.18 while it is around 0.55 in India. The total number of beds available in India is around 7 Lakhs, which is one seventh of Italy.

4.The percentage of people over 60 years is 23% in Italy unlike where as in India, it is around 8%.

5.It is safe to assume a death rate of 8% when the number of patients overwhelms as the mortality of COVID 19 is less about the disease and more about the health care system and mass of patients.

6.The white line represents the threshold for the spike in death rate which is 12,000 patients in Italy, this is estimated to be 84,000 patients in India for such spike in death rate, and this spike can very well be between 7% – 10% based on the data provided.

There is a period between which a person gets infected, and he or she is confirmed positive. Hence the total number of infected people is greater than the total number of confirmed positives in an exponential growth phase. So, can the total number of infections be ever reported correctly? The answer is yes, but the only way of achieving this is to strictly follow social distancing and have near 100% reduction in new cases per day, so that all the cases gets recognized and treated. The graph below shows the analysis of the consequences of not having this parameters matched, which will help us to judge the situation in India better.