Modeling tempo of COVID‐19 pandemic in India and significance of lockdown

• Published date: 01 November 2020
• Author: Brijesh P. Singh,Gunjan Singh
• Date: 01 November 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2257

ACADEMIC PAPER

Modeling tempo of COVID-19 pandemic in India

and significance of lockdown

Brijesh P. Singh

1

|Gunjan Singh

2

1

Department of Statistics, Institute of Science,

Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India

2

Department of Statistics, Amity School of

Applied Sciences, Amity University, Lucknow,

India

Correspondence

Brijesh P. Singh, Department of Statistics,

Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University,

Varanasi-221005, Uttar Pradesh, India.

Email: brijesh@bhu.ac.in

A very special type of pneumonic disease that generated the COVID-19 pandemic

was first identified in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and is spreading all over the

world. The ongoing outbreak presents a challenge for data scientists to model

COVID-19, when the epidemiological characteristics of the COVID-19 are yet to be

fully explained. The uncertainty around the COVID-19 with no vaccine and effective

medicine available until today create additional pressure on the epidemiologists and

policy makers. In such a crucial situation, it is very important to predict infected cases

to support prevention of the disease and aid in the preparation of healthcare service.

In this paper, we have tried to understand the spreading capability of COVID-19 in

India taking into account of the lockdown period. The numbers of confirmed cases

are increased in India and states in the past few weeks. A differential equation based

simple model has been used to understand the pattern of COVID-19 in India and

some states. Our findings suggest that the physical distancing and lockdown strate-

gies implemented in India are successfully reducing the spread and that the tempo of

pandemic growth has slowed in recent days.

1|INTRODUCTION

The Novel Corona Virus (COVID-19) started from Wuhan, China and

thus, initially known as the Wuhan virus, expanded its circle in South

Korea, Japan, Italy, Iran, USA, France, Spain and finally spreading in

India. It is named as novel because it is never seen before mutation of

animal corona virus but certain source of this pandemic is still uni-

dentified.It is said that the virus might be connectedwith a wet market

(with seafood and live animals) from Wuhan that was not complying

with health and safety rules and regulations. The pandemic COVID-19

have been recorded over 200 countries, territories, and areas with

about 3,000,000 co nfirmed cased and 200,000 dea ths (WHO).

The COVID-19 is very similar in symptomatology to other viral

respiratory infections. As it is novel virus, the specific modes of trans-

mission are not clearly known. Originally it is emerged from animal

source then spread all over the world from person to person. Initially,

there has been speculation about the virus spreading while the

infected person is not showing any symptoms, but that has not been

scientifically confirmed. On March 11, 2020, WHO changed the status

of the COVID-19 emergency from public health international

emergency to a pandemic? Nonetheless, the fatality rate of the

current pandemic is on the rise (between 2–4%); relatively lower than

the previous SARS-CoV (2002/2003) and MERS-CoV (2012) out-

breaks (Malik et al., 2020). Thus, COVID-19 has presented an unprec-

edented challenge before the entire world.

Symptoms of COVID-19 are reported as cough, acute onset of

fever and difficulty in breathing. Out of all the cases that have been

confirmed, up to 20% have been deemed to be severe. Cases vary

from mild forms to severe ones that can lead to serious medical condi-

tions or even death. It is believed that symptoms may appear in

2–14 days, as the incubation period for the novel corona virus has not

yet beenconfirmed. However,in India14 days minimumquarantine

period is declared by Government for suspected cases. Since it is a

new type of virus, there is a lot of research being carried out across

the world to understand the nature of the virus, origins of its spreads

to humans, the structure of it, possible cure / vaccine to treat COVID-

19. India also became a part of these research efforts after the first

two confirmed cases were reported here on January 31, 2020. Then

in India screening of traveler at airport migrant was started, immediate

Chinese visas was canceled, and who was found affected from

Received: 24 June 2020Accepted: 27 June 2020

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2257

J Public Affairs. 2020;20:e2257.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa© 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd1of6

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2257