India’s R-naught value, which indicates the spread of COVID-19, was recorded at 4 this week, according to a preliminary analysis by IIT Madras that predicted the peak of the third wave between February 1-15. suggests a very high infection transmission rate.
R-naught or R0 indicates how many people an infected person can spread the disease to. If this value drops below 1, an epidemic is considered over.
Based on a preliminary analysis by computational modeling conducted by IIT Madras, which was shared with PTI, the R0 value at the national level was close to 2.9 last week (December 25 to December 31). This number was recorded this week (January 1-6).
Elaborating further, Dr Jayant Jha, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, IIT Madras, said that R0 depends on three things – transmission probability, contact rate and the expected time interval in which infection can occur.
“Now, with an increase in the quarantine measures or restrictions, perhaps the contact rate will come down and then in that case the R0 may decrease. So, based on our preliminary analysis, which is based on the last two weeks, we can tell There are numbers, but again, these numbers may change depending on how much affirmative action is taken regarding social gathering and all,” he told PTI.
The Union Health Ministry on Wednesday said that the number of coronavirus cases in India is increasing rapidly, which is believed to be driven by the infection. omicron Type. It also highlighted that the country’s R zero value is 2.69, which is higher than the 1.69 recorded during the peak of the second wave of the pandemic.
Jha said the ministry’s estimates are based on a different time interval than IIT Madras, which has conducted a preliminary analysis for the past two weeks.
He further said that as per his estimates, the peak in the current wave is expected to occur between February 1-15 and is expected to be sharper than the earlier peaks.
“What we expect from the exploratory data analysis is that the peak will occur somewhere between February 1-15 and our analysis also shows that the peak will increase sharply compared to the previous waves,” Jha said.
He said that this wave will be different from the previous waves due to factors like vaccination and less social distancing this time.
Responding to how social distancing is anticipated to be low in this wave, he said that many restrictions were imposed during the first wave, but many restrictions have not been imposed yet, despite the high number of cases. .
“But the advantage here is that this time around 50 per cent of the population has been vaccinated,” Jha said.
The preliminary analysis has been jointly conducted by the Department of Mathematics, IIT Madras and the Center of Excellence for Computational Mathematics and Data Science, chaired by Professor Nilesh S Upadhyay and Professor S Sundar.
India witnessed an increase of 1,41,986 new coronavirus cases in a day, taking the tally to 3,53,68,372, including 3,071 cases of Omicron variant in 27 states and union territories so far, the Union Health Ministry said on Saturday. .
This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed. Only the title has been changed.
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