During the first wave of COVID-19 infections in India, the mathematical approach, called SUTRA, predicted that the initial increase in infections in August would peak in September and decline in February 2021.
Scientists, including Manindra Agrawal from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, applied the model to predict the trajectory of the current increase in infections and found that the number of new daily infections is likely to peak in mid-April for this ongoing pandemic wave. .
“Over the past few days, we have found that there is a reasonable chance that cases in India will peak between April 15-20. It is a steep slope, but on the way down it would probably be just as steep. it went down very fast and by the end of May you can see a dramatic reduction, “Agrawal told PTI.
“There is some uncertainty in predicting the peak value of new daily infections due to the sharp increase. Currently, it is reaching 1 lakh of infections per day, but this can go up or down. But the time remains the same between 15th of April and 20, “he added.
Scientists predict that in the current wave, the first state to peak could be Punjab in a few days, followed by Maharashtra.
However, the IIT Kanpur professor added that the prediction of the new peak model is sensitive to daily data of new infections.
“Even a small change each day causes the maximum numbers to change by several thousand numbers. But the location of the peak has remained in mid-April,” he added.
Independent calculations by scientists, including Gautam Menon of Ashoka University in Haryana, have also predicted that the peak of the ongoing wave of infections could be between mid-April and mid-May.
However, Menon cautioned that such COVID-19 case projections really need to be reliable only in the short term.
“Any overly accurate prediction, of a peak within just a 5-day window, would ignore the many uncertainties associated with the inputs to such a calculation,” Menon, who was not involved in the SUTRA model, told PTI.
Agrawal noted that the model uses three main parameters to predict the course of the pandemic.
“The first is called Beta, or contact rate, which measures how many people an infected person infects per day. It is related to the R-nada value, which is the number of people to whom an infected person transmits the virus in the course of their infection, “Agrawal explained.
The other two parameters, he explained, are ‘Reach’, which is a measure of the level of exposure of the population to the pandemic, and ‘Epsilon’, which is the proportion of detected and undetected cases.
“The reason we had to introduce ‘Reach’ is that, unlike previous pandemics that start in one place and suddenly spread rapidly through one place, in COVID, the spread of the pandemic has been slower due to the many protective measures in place, “Agrawal explained.
The mathematician said that ‘Epsilon’ helps to take into account the number of asymptomatic infections throughout the country.
“Since detected cases are quarantined, we assume that they no longer contribute to new infections. Therefore, a growing number of new daily cases reflects larger undetected infections. By measuring the number of new cases each day, we try to estimate undetected and asymptomatic infections, “explained Agrawal.
He added that the model is based on the entries of new infections reported daily, from which the value of the three main parameters is inferred.
“We learn everything from the daily infection data. The beta value across India has increased by 50% in March, indicating that a combination of factors: people become more relaxed and more infectious variants circulate. But, precisely what? The reason this could be is something biologists have to say, “the scientist noted.
While the model did not previously predict a second wave in India, it said it could have been due to a change in parameters sometime between February and March 2021.
“So clearly during this time some parameters had changed. So we had to wait a while to collect new data and see how the parameters had changed, which we now know,” Agrawal said.
On Friday, India recorded 81,466 new infections in a 24-hour span, the largest single-day increase in cases since October 2, 2020, bringing the COVID-19 case count to 1,23,03,131, according to the Union. Data from the Ministry of Health.
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