Scientists say the model’s prediction of the new peak is sensitive to the data of daily new COVID-19 infections
With no help from the authorities, senior citizens from Uttarkashi’s Sar Badiyar region have to walk 8 km to get the COVID vaccine. They cross risky raw trails, in the absence of roads or bridges. Pics/ANI
The single-day rise in cases is the highest recorded since October 2, 2020 when India recorded 81,484 new infections. The death toll increased to 1,63,396 with 469 daily new fatalities, the highest since December 6 (at 482), the data updated at 8 am showed.
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The recovery rate has further dropped to 93.67 per cent, the data stated. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,15,25,039. The case fatality rate stood at 1.33 per cent, the data stated.
Scientists, including Manindra Agrawal from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, applied a mathematical model, named SUTRA, to predict the trajectory of the current surge in infections and found that the number of daily new infections is likely to peak in mid-April for this ongoing pandemic wave.
“For the last several days, we have found that there is a reasonable chance that the cases in India could peak sometime between 15-20 April. It is a sharp slope, but on the way down, it would likely be equally sharp, coming down very fast and by end of May could see a dramatic reduction,” Agrawal told PTI.
“There is some uncertainty in predicting the peak value of daily new infections because of the sharp rise. Currently, it is coming to 1 lakh infections per day, but this can go up or down. But the timing remains the same,” he added. “Even a little bit of change each day causes the peak numbers to change by several thousand.”
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1,23,03,131
Total number of cases in the country as of Sunday
1,63,396
Total no. of deaths due to the virus in India
1,15,25,039
Patients Recovered and discharged in India as of sunday
6,87,89,138
(Total no. of people vaccinated so far)