India is likely to have already passed the peak of the coronavirus pandemic in September and cases will further stabilize, said a panel of scientists and doctors, based on mathematical and statistical forecasts about the spread of the infectious disease. The panel also stated that the pandemic can be controlled by the end of February 2021 with minimal active symptomatic cases if all protocols are followed and if the government does not relax activities further.
The Department of Science and Technology formed the panel in May to help monitor future transmission of the infection, aid decisions related to health system readiness, and other mitigation measures.
These were the preliminary results of the government modeling study and the detailed results will be published in a peer-reviewed journal next week.
The panel used the real-time data set to forecast transmission, to measure the effect of the blockade, migrations, and also project future scenarios based on the unblocking measures that are being followed throughout the country.
The modeling expert panel claimed that the pandemic had passed its peak during the month of September, although that was not a reason to relax. The panel also stated that 30 percent of the country’s population was already projected to have antibodies, indicating that they had been infected with the virus. By the end of August, 14 percent were likely to have developed antibodies. The panel’s projections on the prevalence of infection were twice what the Indian Council for Medical Research had discovered through the second national sero-survey study.
Furthermore, the panel projected that there would be an estimated 106 lakh of symptomatic infections during the course of the pandemic. Currently, the panel stated, there are an estimated 66 lakh of symptomatic infections.
However, many questions about the forecast asked by the panel were left unanswered. The panel did not respond to why cases are declining, why they are likely to continue declining, and why the exodus of migrants did not cause a sharp increase in cases between May and June.
The blockade and its effect
The panel also modeled the impact of the national lockdown, as well as scenarios in which no lockdown was imposed or was imposed later in April or May. The panel said that in a “no-lock” scenario, cases would have been 14 times what they were in June, when the peak had started.
“Infections would have skyrocketed if the lockdown had not been imposed. If we had delayed it for two months, the peak would have been less than a ‘no-lock’ scenario but greater than the actual reported scenario, “said Professor M Vidyasagar, chairman of the government-appointed panel, during a virtual presentation of the findings. of the study.
“The lockdown reduced the maximum load on our system, we pushed the peak until September, starting at the end of June. It allowed our system to handle the pandemic much better, ”he added.
The panel also claimed that the mass exodus of billions of migrants from key industrial states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh to Odisha, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh did not have a multiplier effect on the transmission of the infection. However, the panel did not offer an explanation as to why this may have happened when asked by News18.com about it. “We have not examined that aspect,” said Professor Vidyasagar, responding to a question posed by News18.com.
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