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MUMBAI: At least half of the 1.3 billion people in India are likely to have been infected with the new coronavirus by next February, which will help slow the spread of the disease, a member of a committee from the federal government charged with providing projections.
India has reported 7.55 million coronavirus cases so far and ranks second after the US in terms of total infections.
But Covid-19 infections are declining in India after a peak in mid-September, with 61,390 new cases reported on average each day, according to a Reuters tally.
“Our mathematical model estimates that around 30% of the population is currently infected and it could increase to 50% in February,” Manindra Agrawal, a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur and a member of the committee, told Reuters.
The committee’s estimate for the current spread of the virus is much higher than the federal government serological surveys, which showed that only about 14% of the population had been infected, as of September.
But Agrawal said serosurveys might not get absolutely correct sampling due to the large size of the population they were surveying.
Instead, the committee of virologists, scientists and other experts, whose report was released Sunday, has relied on a mathematical model.
“We have developed a new model that explicitly takes into account unreported cases, so that we can divide infected people into two categories: reported cases and unreported infections,” Agrawal said.
The committee warned that its projections would not hold if precautions were not followed, and cases could increase by as much as 2.6 million infections in a single month if measures such as social distancing and the use of masks were ignored.
Experts have warned that infections could increase in India as the Christmas season approaches, and the Hindu festival celebrations of Durga Puja and Diwali will take place this month and mid-November, respectively.
