COVID-19: Second Wave In India May Peak By Mid-April, Say Scientists

OB Bureau

April 2, 2021 7:21 pm

New Delhi: Going by a mathematical model used by scientists, the ongoing second-wave of COVID-19 pandemic across the country could peak by mid-April. However, the infections may see a steep decline by the end of May.

During the first wave of COVID-19 infections across India, the mathematical approach, named SUTRA, predicted that the initial surge of infections in August would peak by September and lower in February 2021, The New Indian Express (TNIE) reported quoting PTI.

Here is what Manindra Agrawal from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur told PTI:

The number of daily new infections is likely to peak in mid-April (sometime between April 15-20) for this ongoing pandemic wave.
It is a sharp slope, but on the way down, it would likely be equally sharp, coming down very fast and by end of May may see a dramatic reduction
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 model’s prediction of the new peak is sensitive to the daily new infections data. “Even a little bit of change each day causes the peak numbers to change by several thousand numbers. But the location of the peak has remained on mid-April,” he was quoted as saying.

Independent calculations made by scientists, including Gautam Menon from 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 projections of COVID-19 cases should really be trusted only in the short term.

“Any excessively precise prediction, of a peak within just a 5-day window, would ignore the many uncertainties associated with the inputs to any such calculation,” Menon, who was not involved in the SUTRA modelling, told PTI.