NEW DELHI: The Covid-19 pandemic is yet to peak in West Bengal, Delhi peaked twice in a span of 20 days while Tamil Nadu bucked the trend of cases not declining for a long time after peaking in July-end.
These are some of the state-wise findings of a research conducted by a committee of the Department of Science and Technology to study Covid-19’s progression.
The committee came to the conclusion that the disease in India had peaked last month itself.
A majority among the top 10 worst Covid-19 affected states in the country saw the pandemic peak in mid-September or early October, except West Bengal.
Active cases are expected to fall below 1,000 for three of these states by December-end, according to the national supermodel. The supermodel was proposed by a committee constituted by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) to evolve Covid-19 progression.
According to predictions based on the supermodel, the active cases peaked around 10 lakh on September 18.
However, it said that this number will start rising again if proper practices of masking, disinfecting, tracing, and quarantine are not followed and that these practices are adopted during the ongoing festive season.
The analysis of Covid progression in the 10 worst affected states —Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, West Bengal, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat — show that the pandemic peaked between September 17 and October 10.
Active cases may fall below 1,000 for Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab by December-end. In a shift from other states, West Bengal is yet to hit a peak as the Covid-19 cases continue to rise in the state.
According to the model, West Bengal should have peaked by now and a fall should have started by October 4, but the actual numbers show otherwise.
Pandemic graph in Delhi has seen two jumps; Tamil Nadu hit early peak
TN was the first among the 10 worst affected states that saw the pandemic peak at the earliest on July 30 with 57,959 cases. But unlike the top three states with active cases — Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka — that saw a gradual decline after touching a peak, Tamil Nadu did not see a similar downfall in cases after peaking by July-end.
Between July 30 (peak date) and till September 8, active cases in TN remained above 50,000 per day and it was only after September 9 that the figure came down to 49,000. Moreover, till October 16, cases remained above 40,000 and fell below after that, shows the data from the supermodel.
For Delhi, the pandemic progression graph has seen two jumps — one on June 26 with 27,657 cases and falling to 9,897 on August 3 and again rising with a peak on September 17 at 32,250.
The numbers have seen an upward trend again in the national capital from October 11 with 25,237 active cases recorded on October 22.
According to the committee, imposition of various safety protocols such as wearing masks, social distancing, along with a comprehensive lockdown has allowed India to fare better than many other countries.
The model has four parameters: epsilon, beta, gamma, and eta. The epsilon denotes the fraction of population that, if infected, transitions to I (who require significant medical intervention).
Beta denotes the probability of a person coming in contact with an infected person and catching the infection.
While Gamma denotes the probability of an infected person recovering on a specific day, Eta denotes the probability of an infected person dying on a specific day.