While Covid-19 continues to wreak havoc in most parts of the world, the researchers at the International Management Institute (IMI), Bhubaneswar, have attempted to put a timeline on the lifecycle of this pandemic in India.
In a study done by Professor and Director Prof Ramesh Behl and Associate Professor of IMI Bhubaneswar Prof Manit Mishra based on State-wise daily data of Covid-19 in ten most infected States of India, the likely end-date of the pandemic has emerged to be last week of September to first week of October, 2020.
The authors of the study also suggest around 15th to 20th of May as the date when the infection would reach its peak point in most States and thereafter subside. The States studied were Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, MP, Rajasthan, UP, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal and Odisha. The title of the study is “Covid-19 Lifecycle: Predictive Modeling of States in India.”
The authors have used advanced analytical tools and techniques to arrive at their conclusion. In this study actual data was used for the period from April 1 to April 30, 2020 to predict. The State-wise data that was available has lots of variations in terms of number of Covid-19 positive cases detected every day.
Secondly, the study is based on following major assumptions: (1) the total susceptible population of the State would be exposed to virus within 3 months from the first date of data collection, i.e. April 1, 2020; (2) the median of the highest ten instances of confirmed cases per day during the month of April 2020 is representative of per day infection confirmation; (3) an infected person continues to infect susceptible individuals in the population for three days until removed; and (4) each infected individual infects 3.28 other individuals per day.
A violation in any of these assumptions results in a poor prediction. However, the findings of the study are in alignment with a similar international endeavour by the Singapore University of Technology and Design’s (SUTD) Data-Driven Innovation Lab to predict the end-date of the pandemic in various countries.
