At current rate, India can see 30,000 COVID-19 deaths by May, no hospital bed by June: Data
After the largest single-day increase in the number of novel coronavirus cases in India, it has never been clearer that the pandemic is upon us and the next few weeks are going to throw up a scenario that many still find hard to imagine. From the data we have, here’s a look at the near future, and what the Narendra Modi government needs to do.
India is hitting a period of exponential growth
It took India forty days to reach the first 50 cases, five more days to reach 100 cases, three more days to reach 150 cases and then just two more days to reach 200 cases. From here on, the juggernaut is going to roll fast.
The number of confirmed cases in India is now doubling in five days or less, down from six days earlier this month. This puts India in line with trajectories of countries across the world — in the United States, cases are now doubling every two days.
Italy discovered its first case 10 days after South Korea. For another 20 days it had less than 10 cases, even as South Korea’s case count began to rise steadily. But then in a span of one frightening week, Italy’s case count multiplied a hundredfold. Within the next week, South Korea began to flatten the curve, while Italy’s case count continues to skyrocket, completely overwhelming its health system. India needs to try to move its own growth curve away from the Italy trajectory, and fast, with strict implementation of the social distancing measures it has already announced, if not even stricter lockdowns.
Moreover, these are only confirmed cases; to ascertain the true number of cases, India will need to ramp up its conservative testing. On Friday, the Modi government took one small step closer to that by expanding testing to those hospitalised with respiratory distress who did not have known contact with a person with foreign travel history.
India is set for an explosion of cases
At this rate of growth, and assuming the 3.4 per cent fatality rate relative to confirmed cases calculated by the World Health Organization, India is headed for nearly a million confirmed cases by the end of May and over 30,000 deaths. These are conservative estimates. A team of bio-statisticians used predictive modelling and estimated that the number could be even higher, reaching nearly a million cases by 15 May instead.
Sudden single-day spikes, or a higher ratio of estimated to confirmed cases — nearly impossible to put a number to in the absence of more widespread testing — could tip these numbers higher, faster. By assuming that there are eight times as many undiscovered as confirmed cases, Indian software entrepreneur Mayank Chhabra estimated over five million cases and over 1.7 lakh deaths by the end of May.
The print
