India may witness 4-8 lakh daily Covid infections by end of Jan: SUTRA model
Hyderabad: The present trajectory of the Omicron driven Covid-19 third wave in Mumbai is indicating that the country could witness daily Covid infections peaking at anywhere between 4 lakh and 8 lakh positive cases, the revised SUTRA mathematical model for pandemic, developed by researchers from IIT-Kanpur and Hyderabad, said, adding that the infections will peak […]
Hyderabad: The present trajectory of the Omicron driven Covid-19 third wave in Mumbai is indicating that the country could witness daily Covid infections peaking at anywhere between 4 lakh and 8 lakh positive cases, the revised SUTRA mathematical model for pandemic, developed by researchers from IIT-Kanpur and Hyderabad, said, adding that the infections will peak by end of January or initial days of February.
A few weeks ago, the SUTRA model had projected that the entire country will peak at around 1.5 lakh to 1.8 lakh Covid infections due to the Omicron variant. However, given the circumstances in Mumbai, where the Omicron variant has triggered a major surge in Covid infections, the SUTRA model has been revised to 4 lakh to 8 lakh daily Covid infections during the peak of the third Covid wave in the country.
“Doing prediction for India at the moment is more difficult since the model has not been able to capture the present phase yet. Extrapolating from Mumbai, we estimate that peak could arrive in Jan-end/Feb-beginning. Its value could be between 4-8 lakh cases per day (7-day average),” Dr Manindra Agrawal, IIT-Kanpur and part of SUTRA Consortium, said on Friday.
Despite the surge in Covid infections, the IIT researchers said that the Mumbai and Delhi experience has indicated that hospitalisations are close to 3.5 percent of the reported Omicron cases, which should be still manageable not only in Mumbai but across the Country.
The initial SUTRA model Covid-19 third wave projections for the entire country were based on the Omicron variant’s impact in South Africa. “As observed, the Indian trajectory is very different from South Africa. With time, we will be able to make our projections even more precise. Present situation indicates that the bed requirement in India could peak at around 1.5 lakh, which is a big jump from our earlier projections that were based on South Africa data.” Dr Manindra Agrawal in social media platform Twitter, said.
The noted researchers, however, made it clear that overall, the third wave appears to be very much manageable. “Overall, this wave appears manageable due to low hospitalization rates. Of course, things could change in the next couple of weeks. Also, there may be localized shortages of beds. So proper care and planning is warranted,” the researchers suggested.
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