Updated: August 29, 2020 12:38:10 pm
Authorities disinfect an ambulance in Pune. (Express photo: Arul Horizon)
A new forecast for the COVID-19 pandemic in India shows that while the disease will continue to pose a significant public health threat, it is possible to prevent more than 200,000 deaths by December 1, 2020, with the widespread use of masks and data driven. social distancing measures in the most affected states.
The model, produced by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, suggests that at best, India can expect approximately 291,145 total COVID-19 deaths by December 1, compared to 60,000 at the end of August. . This scenario assumes that mask use increases to near universal levels (95 percent) and that six-week statewide closings are re-imposed if the daily death rate exceeds 8 per million in the state.
This threshold is based on when governments around the world have typically imposed lockdowns to stop the transmission of COVID-19. In contrast, if confinement restrictions continue to decline and mask use remains at current levels, India can expect approximately 492,380 deaths by December 1. In this scenario, 13 states would have more than 10,000 total deaths from COVID-19 by that time (see table below). Currently, only Maharashtra has crossed this threshold.
“India’s epidemic is far from over, as a large proportion of the population is still susceptible,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the IHME. The Indian Express. “In fact, our model shows that there is a wide range of potential outcomes, depending on the actions that governments and people take today, tomorrow and in the near future. Wearing masks and social distancing are crucial to mitigating the spread of the virus.
“There is an opportunity to further limit the number of COVID-19 victims in India by highlighting the critical need for people to comply with the use of face masks, social distancing and other COVID-19 prevention guidelines as recommended by public health authorities, ”said Dr. Murray. additional.
India’s response to COVID-19 has produced some significant successes that highlight the opportunity to limit the number of victims of the pandemic in the country. In some urban areas, including Delhi, containment measures including intensive contact tracking, widespread testing, wearing of masks, and social distancing mandates have helped reduce the spread of the virus. Additionally, COVID-19 testing in India has increased rapidly.
Forecasts show the opportunity to prevent more than 200,000 deaths by December 1.
“India is at a tipping point,” Murray said. “If hospitals in those states cannot accommodate all the people who need COVID-19 care, the result will be more deaths and more long-term damage to state and local economies.”
Until a vaccine is widely available against COVID-19, much of the Indian population will remain susceptible to the disease. Monitoring state-by-state trends, encouraging mask use, maintaining social distancing and hygiene precautions, and using state or district-level closures if necessary, can help save lives and minimize the impact of the pandemic on the health and economy of India.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent global health research organization of the University of Washington School of Medicine that provides a rigorous and comparable measurement of the world’s most important health problems and assesses the strategies used to address them.
The IHME projections for India are based on an epidemiological model that includes data on cases, deaths, and antibody prevalence, as well as state-specific COVID-19 testing rates, mobility, social distancing mandates, mask wear, density population and age structure, and seasonality of pneumonia, which shows a strong correlation with the trajectory of COVID-19.
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