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?:abstract
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Background: The COVID-19 epidemic has been ravishing the word as well as our country since the past few months Various epidemiological models have been forwarded in the recent past for forecasting the course of COVID epidemic in India, and most of these have been widely off the mark, overestimating the likely magnitude by many times Similarly, there have been some harsh criticisms of the nationwide lockdown;however none of these critical writings have been able to justify their content or forward a suitable alternative to lockdown Against the foregoing, an effort was made to develop an alternative epidemiological model to forecast the likely course of the epidemic in our country and to dispassionately analyze the effects of 10 weeks of lockdown Material and Methods: Data for the period 8th May to 14th June regarding cases detected on that day and cumulative number of cases till that date, cases who reached “end-point” on that day and cumulative number till that day, and deaths on that day as well as cumulative deaths till that day was obtained from Aarogya Setu, the standard Government of India application for COVID-19 The data was subjected to “time-series analysis” and parameters were calculated by linear regression, using the WHO / CDC statistical package (Epi-7) Results: The study indicated that the “ratio of cumulative total of cases detected: cumulative cases who reached end point” and the ratio of “cases detected on that day: cases who reached end point (cured / discharged/died) on that day”, would reach unity (indicating a “stabilization” of the epidemic) between 16th July and 01st August 2020 At that point of time, the cumulative total number of cases detected till that day are likely to be 11,80,000 (95% CL 10,74,368 to 12,41,768) The cumulative total number of deaths which would occurred till that day are likely to be 20,000 (95% CL 18,800 to 21,200), while the number of new cases detected on a given day by then, are likely to be 23,000 (95% CL 22,000 to 24,000) Conclusion: The study results are at variance from the projection models forwarded by other workers who had projected very high estimates The reasons for this variance in context of the lockdown and the various putative beneficial effects of the lockdown have been reasoned out in this study, followed by certain suggestions for control and mitigation of the epidemic © 2020 Pravara Institute of Medical Sciences All rights reserved
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