COVID-19 updates - June end

The past week seem to have changed the scenario little bit. A sudden jump in the reported positive cases is the reason behind it. Despite, I don't see much change in the projections. Last week, I revised the projection from 5.4 lakhs to 5.75 lakhs by the end of the month. The sudden spikes seen in the last few days would take this number to around 5.8 -5.9 lakhs. So, pretty much similar area of projection.
There are couple of good things to look forward too. Like, the recent doubling time was 17 days. Now we are in the 16th day since the count of 3.2 lakhs, and we have a pretty long way to reach the count of 6.4 lakhs. Means the doubling time would surely be more than 17 days. At the same time, the mortality rate has slightly reduced from 3.2% to 3.08%. Also, the recovery rate has also touched 60%.
Talking about further projections, by 15th July, we can see a huge jump reaching a count of 11.5 lakhs.

Talking about states, Maharashtra seems in no mood to loose its first position. In between for a day, it so happened that Delhi crossed over Maharashtra. With 3200 cases, Maharashtra stood at second position to Delhi with almost 3900 cases. This seems didn't go well with Maharashtra. Since then it changed its zone and directly jumped in a range of 5000+ cases. My projections of 1.7 to 1.9 lakhs seems to turn right. To be precise, it may touch and cross 1.75 lakh cases by the end of this month. Going further, the projections by 15 July could be reaching a whopping 3.75 lakh cases. At one point, Maharashtra was almost on the verge of flattening the plateau. But not any more. Once again, it is hitting 1/3rd of the cases of all the total count of India.
Tamilnadu, though little over estimating, seems to have come in control. The current numbers are crossing my projection and may settle around 90000 cases by the end of this month. But it still is far better than my 2 week back projection of 1.2 lakhs. By 15th July, I see the number growing to 1.75 lakhs though.
Delhi is a new favorite for discussion. It seem to follow the projected trend and may reach up to 92000 cases by the end of the month. But, it seems Delhi got little disheartened ( Good for Delhi) by Maharashtra which got into competitive mode suddenly. The rise in the number of cases seem to get settled between 3.5- 4 thousand cases. As a result, for Delhi too, the cases by the end of 15th July may reach a number of 1.75 lakhs.

All the other states are also reporting a bigger and bigger number of cases every day. But I am not currently going to project their numbers here, though I have projections done for many of them. May be I will put a table at the end of this month for couple of states for every ones reference.
I feel, the big spikes are seen for last few days, but there are pretty good number of good news also hidden within them. Lets be hopeful

Unlock 1.0 - third week

The situation looks little grim. Isn't it. Every day, we are hitting a new high. Last two days we crossed 15k mark of positive cases reported in a day. But there is a silver lining also to these updates. As many as 56% people have successfully recovered from COVID-19 and the number of active patients is reduced to 41%. At the same time, the mortality ratio has also not increased. Its kind of constant at 3.2%.

With sudden increase appearing in the number of cases, I had to revise the projections for the month end.

So, for India, the projection has gone up slightly. Compared to earlier 5.4 lakhs, now, it may touch a number somewhere around 5.75 lakhs.

My projection for Maharashtra last week seems overestimated. Although Maharashtra is reporting new highs every day, it  seems the total at the end of the month will stick around 1,70,000 to 1,90,000. That is a huge improvement.

I thought Tamilnadu is the next Maharashtra. But, seems it is proving me wrong. Contrary to earlier projection of 1,20,000, the new projection is limiting the number somewhere around 75-80 K. That is another improvement.

Only state, which seem to show worse upcoming situation than earlier projected is Delhi. The projections had to be revised from earlier number of 72,000 to 96,000. This seem to be competing with Maharashtra in per day new cases numbers reported.

Gujrat seem to be on track to good control. The projections seem moving in right direction from earlier 40,000 projected cases to 32-34 K cases by the end of the month.

 

All in all, except for Delhi, we are in good shape. If we check the actual active number of cases, we have hardly 1,76,000 cases to handle. Among these active cases, with current mortality rate, we amy have almost 5000 cases at risk of facing death situation. Can we save them?

Unlock 1 continues

So, the Unlock 1.0 is slowly gripping up. Some people are questioning, with the increasing number of cases every day, is it the right way to go ahead or should there be another lock down imposed?

I believe, there is no more need of lock downs. What ever is to be achieved, has been achieved.

Inspite of what the number says, I would say, the spread is quite in control. If you remember, my projection of positive cases in India by 15th June, was 3,50,000. I made little revision last week and projected the number to be around 3.5 -3.8 lakh cases. Comparing the projection to actual numbers today, we are gladly way behind that number. By the end of the day, I don't see the number crossing 3,45,000 mark. This simply means, we are in a way improving the situation. Second aspect to check the rise, is to make a note of doubling time. The doubling time has increases to 17 days, which is a good news. 

This improvement is also reflected in the new projections, I am making till the end of June month. So, on 31st May, I projected the number for June end as 5,00,000. Then, I revised it to 6,00,000 by 8th June. Now, I am again revising it and putting it somewhere around 5.4 lakhs, which is a big improvement over the last week.

Now, Maharashtra has been a major contender behind these increasing number of cases. Last week, I projected the number of cases from Mahrashtra by the end of June 15 to increase to 1.1 -1.2 lakh cases. As of today, the number stands at 1.08 lakhs. By the end of the day, the number will rise probably to 1.11 lakhs. This is an improvement. Although, I also projected a case, where the number may have reached its peak at 1.2 lakhs and may start reducing. But looks like, that scenario will need some more time to come into picture. As per present situation, the projections for Maharashtra for the end of the month stands at around 2,35,000 cases. Maharashtra had started signs of recovery, but with the spread in areas in addition to Mumbai and Pune, looks like by June end, Maharashtra will be contributing almost 43% of total cases of India.

There is kind of competition between Tamilnadu and Delhi. I projected around 42,000 cases for both the state by 15th June. While Delhi is touching that mark today, Tamilnadu has gone past that number. I am little surprised, why then all the attention is on Delhi, while Tamilnadu situation is deteriorating day by day. If the current trend follows, Tamilnadu will cross a mark of 1.2 lakhs by the month end. There is a serious need to check the situation of Tamilnadu. In contrast, Delhi is given bigger attention. The situation is bad, but, I guess still far better than Tamilnadu. I do not see Delhi crossing 70,000 mark by the end of this month. That is a way better situation.

Gujrat is the fourth state in the race. But, it is lagging behind in the race, which is a good thing. I predicted two scenarios for the state. I am glad, the second scenario of projected 1,00,000 cases did not arise and Gujrat continued keeping strong grip on the spread of COVID. If the current trend continues, we can expected the number restricted to 40,000 cases.

So, these 4 states together will contribute almost 4,65,000 cases out of projected 5,40,000 cases across India. i.e. this ratio would decrease from 86% in two weeks to 65%. This is something to worry about. Other states would be contributing 35% of cases by the end of the month. If we manage to put control on rise in cases in other states, we would be able to significantly curb the spread of COVID. Let's see how things change in coming two weeks.

Unlock 1: First week

The first week of Unlocking the Indian Economy has started showing some signs of disturbance. But I guess these disturbances were expected and that's why I don't see any of the government showing any panic signs. On the contrary, they seem to go ahead with their plans to open up the economy further and further.

The last 3 days of the week have actually been exceptional. We have started recording the 3rd largest number of cases per day just after USA and Brazil. In fact, last 2 days, we have consecutively been crossing the mark of 10,000 cases per day. 

Unlike earlier, the contribution of Maharashtra towards total cases has reduced. Earlier, the share used to be between 35 -50 % of total cases, but now it has reduced to 25-33 % share. That doesn't mean Maharashtra has significantly improved its situation. It has just managed to maintain its COVID-19 cases to a constant number of 2500 -3000. In a way, it seems to have reach its peak interms of per day cases added. If the situation remains the same, by the end of 15 June, I project the number to stay around 1.1 -1.2 lakh cases. We may start seeing signs of reversal during this time, which means,for Maharashtra atleast, we would have crossed the peak.

Other two states which have started playing bigger role are Delhi and Tamilnadu. Looks like its just a beginning and peak of per day cases is yet to arrive. By the end of June 15 the cases in both the states would rise to ~ 42000 cases. Very soon, the two states would overtake Maharashtra and would start racing for number 1 contributor position.

The fourth state of Gujrat, seem to have kept it under control. It lost its 3rd position contributor rank to Delhi and has been enlarging the gap. We are not sure, if the migrant issue is going to effect the state in coming days or not. All in all, till June 15, it looks under control. But just in case, it looses control, we can expect very big spike crossing 1 lakh mark for the state by the end of this month.

The worrisome part comes after this. Earlier the contribution coming from these 4 states used to be arounf 75-80 % of total Indian cases reported per day. Now, the number has slightly reduced to 65-70 % range. Which means the cases arising from other states have started showing significant increase. We can, may be blame this to migration that happened in last 2-3 weeks time. If it is just the untested migrants getting tested after reaching their destination, then it is fine. But, if the numbers coming is because of the spread caused due to these migrants to their respective destination areas. Then there is a problem.

The effect is visible. My earlier projections for total cases in India by the end of the month were around 5 lakh cases. But, now, the estimate need to be revised to a number above 6 lakhs.

On a positive note, the recovery rate of India is good. Almost closer to 50%. The mortality rate seems pretty low, almost 2.77%. That is the strongest aspect about India. Our number may rise to any new height in coming, as long as our recovery rate is getting better day by day, we should be fine.

COVID projections: Mission "Begin Again"

So, India has finished its 10 weeks lockdown. While the number seems to increase at a much higher rate than earlier, but somewhere it also seem to be in control. This can be said based on the doubling rate. India went from 25k to 50k cases in 12 days. From 50k to 1Lakh in next 12 days. With that calculations, India should have crossed the count of 2 lakh on May 30 itself. But Today (June 01) is 14th day and we are still almost 9k behind that count. So, the doubling rate is increasing, which is good.

We need to understand one thing here, the number of cases is going to keep growing in coming days. As the number that we often come across is the total number and not the actual active cases ( the number left after removing number of cured cases), we will end up seeing big numbers on the screen. Our recovery rate is also good, reaching almost 50% now. That will create a better picture of the actual severity of the COVID cases.

Jumping into the number game once again, I projected a renewed number of 1,90,000 for India at the end of 4th lockdown. The projection was spot on crossing the projected number by just 600 more cases.  After 10 weeks,  now although, we are calling it as Mission Begin again, but still it is a kind of lockdown with little relaxed norms. After 2 weeks time, India is set to touch a new number of 3.5 lakhs at the end of 15 June, if the current trend is followed. And  this is good news, because with this number, we are actually improving the doubling rate. For India although, the flattening of the curve is not in site yet.

The trend of the major contributor, Maharashtra might be reversing in coming days. If the current trend continue as it is, we might see a number around 1.25-1.3 lakhs by the end of 15 June.

But, considering the recent decrease in the reported cases per day, a reversal might be insight and as per another projection, it may happen that Maharashtra will reach its peak around 92000 and start showing a reverse trend. There is a high chance that Maharashtra will give away its tag of major contributor to some other state (Mostly Delhi or Tamilnadu) and in strict sense start its "Begin Again" mission. Now there is some sense of suspicion regarding the reduced number of positive cases reported in Maharashtra. According to some news we came across, the government has reduced the number of testings itself . Automatically, the number of positive cases reported will also reduce. But lets not get into it. Genuine or fabricated, the number seems to have reduced and this has surely brought the peaking period for Maharashtra in sight.

The second biggest contributor (but still far behind in race to Maharashtra) is Tamilnadu. Although, there seem to be a big rise in its numbers, I feel, the state is also close to its peak, somewhere around 27-28 thousand, by the end of this 15 days slot.

But there is a catch here. Contrary to Maharashtra, where the recent trend is of decreasing number of cases, Tamilndu has started reporting bugger and bigger number of cases in last few days. And the increase in number is pretty high. If this near recent trend is not temporary and infact end up growing further, there is a large possibility of explosion of cases where the number of cases may touch upto 1 lakh cases by the end of June 15. That's why, Tamilnadu seem to be major contender to replace Maharashtra 

While Tamilnadu, atleast has a minute chance of reaching its peak by June 15, Delhi doesn't seem to be in that mood at all. In case of  Delhi, the question, will the increasing trend remain the same or enhance further. If current rate is followed, the number of cases may reach nearly 60,000 cases.

But,  if the rate increases even slightly, the number of positive cases by the end of June 15 will jump up to 90,000 cases. Thats why, Delhi becomes the second big contender to overtake Maharashtra. Worst part is, we are not seeing any signs of its peak in coming days, in fact till the end of June.

Gujrat is the fourth state with large number of cases. But, seems like the situation has already started getting under control. By June 15, the number may rise upto 22,000 cases. 

But if the last few days trend is to be followed, there is a big chance that, the state will reach its peak somewhere around 19,000 and will start dying down after that.

There is another projection, where enhanced rate can be considered compared to current rate. In this scenario, the number of cases here too, will show a big jump and may reach upto 32-33,000 cases. But, even in such scenario, the state is in no competition to either Tamilnadu or Delhi to become the major contributor.

While Maharashtra and Gujrat will start receding in coming days, the number of cases for India will keep rising. And here, the number will start dropping in from other states. Blame it on migration of workers or something else, but we are seeing a growing trend from all other states. With entry of migrants into the state as well as opening up of lockdown, it is going to be the test of every state, how they will manage to control the growth of COVID-19 in their respective states. Seems like few states including U.P., M.P. and Rajasthan have managed to  put some brake on its growth. What about others?
Lets wait and understand.

4th Lock down revised projections

We are entering into third week of lockdown. The situation seems to go from worse to worst. Yesterday, we registered record 7000+ number of cases. Almost half of it coming solely from one state of Maharashtra. With this migrant’s transportation across India happening right now, I don’t see any way the number coming down anytime. Situation of India doesn’t look promising. Last week, I projected a number pf around 1,82,000 cases by the end of 4^th lockdown. But looks like, it will rise a bit to 1,90,000 cases. The trend seems moving beyond cubical correlation and towards n=4 value. I am not showing that correlation at the moment, but this incremental trend of last couple of days, where per day cases is breaking new records, continues, then this number may reach closer to 2 lakhs for sure. Testing times.

There is no doubt, that the major contributor to this chaos is Maharashtra. As of now almost 36% cases are coming from this state, with the first state to cross 50,000 mark solely. This number is almost equal to the total number of cases OFFICIALLY reported by Pakistan. I am not sure how well the situation is handled by the present government of Maharashtra. Too many issues keep coming up. Very high population density like 7.5 lakhs of people living in 2 square km area of Dharavi (Difficult to maintain social distancing). Limitations visible over keeping strict lock down. Issues over migrant’s coming on road and so on. We can just hope, things will come in control at some point of the time, but definitely not till the end of 4^th lockdown. There is a high probability that the number of cases in Maharashtra itself will rise above 70000.

The next bigger contributor is Tamilnadu. But it is way behind Maharashtra. Infact, the total of next 3 states in list of cases, Tamilnadu, Gujrat and Delhi together fail to cross the mark made by Maharashtra. Such is the performance of Maharashtra. Looking at Gujrat, it has managed to keep the rise ratio to square term. And as indicated in last week projection, Tamilnadu which once showed cubic trend of increase, has started diverting away to the squarish trend. But Delhi seem to be growing with the same old cubic rate. By the end of the 4^th lock down, the three states together would contribute around 60,000 cases, much lesser than Maharashtra alone.

In a bigger probability, this would be the end of lock down era. Things will start smoothening out after 31^st May, even in areas which are red zone right now. Only time will tell, if we will a big jump in coming days. But one thing is sure, we are now entering the group of countries, which are red marked. Our yesterday’s number of daily reported cases stand 4^th after US, Brazil and Russia.  Difficult days are waiting ahead. 

                                                            SO, Gear up.

4th Lockdown end projections

I was not expecting, but here I am making projection for the end of 4th Lockdown in India. What ever claim people might be making, I believe, we are no where close to flattening the curve. Instead, we are now kind of drifting away from squarish trend towards cubic trend.  In last projection, I predicted 90000 cases for India. And as a matter of fact, on 17th Morning, the count was 90648. But on the day of the end of lockdown, it jumped by more than 5000.The square pattern is surely becoming a case of past. I am assuming in coming two weeks, the number will rise to any number  between 1,62,000 and more closer to 1,82,000. This, when the trend is not even completely cubic in nature. If the situation deteriorates, which is quite possible for many reasons and activities happened recently, I won't be surprised, if the number crosses 2 lakh.

But one more thing to notice would be the doubling time, if my projections remain true like last time, would be more than 14 days, which I guess is a good number. So, irrespective of the big number getting counted, probably, there is some kind of flattening, happening in the big picture as some studies might suggest.

The major contributor no doubt is Maharashtra. Unlike other states, it is very consistent. We hardly see any decrease in number. In every 3-4 days, it jumps to a new high and then starts settling down at that number for couple of days and then again takes a big jump. Just yesterday, the number jumped to a new big of ~2300.  After checking the trends of other states, it seems that the major reason for India tilting towards cubic trend is none other than Maharashtra, which itself has started taking that path. I predict by the end of this 4th lockdown the number of cases in Maharastra will reside no lesser than 58000 and probably somewhere closer to 68000.

Tamilnadu seems to be heartening story to me. Last time, I showed, how it is the only state in India showing cubic trend. But as I was expecting, it was a temporary phase unlike Maharashtra where the trends are consistently increasing. To me, it seems the trend is now deviating away and reducing from cubic correlation. If the projections are to be followed, the number for Tamilnadu may extend to a number somewhere between 22000 to 31000. How significantly the trend is deviating from cubic trend will be realized by seeing the number as far away possible from 31000.

Last, but not the least is the state of Gujrat. It was doing fine, following a squarish correlation when suddenly a big spike of nearly 1000 cases in a day appeared just two days back. I guess it was a once in a while cases and probably the trend will follow again as earlier. The thing is it will make it difficult to reach the zone of flattening the curve. All in all, a number closer or slightly higher than 19000 is what I would project by the end of 4th lock down.

I will be glad if this puts an end to my projection studies. It is disheartening to see the number growing so rapidly and all we can do is "Nothing".

COVID-19 New projection for 3rd lockdown end

The things seem going from worse to worst. Forget linear correlation, now we are drifting away from squarish correlation. The major contributor no doubt is Maharashtra. Yesterday, it reached a new height crossing mark of 2000 cases in one day. There are many crowded areas in Mumbai, where social distancing is just impossible. I believe taking some lesson from this crisis, the government will try to take some efforts in decluttering the chaos in places like Dharavi. There is hardly any living quality in those places and I think, this  crisis should be taken as an opportunity to bring some system in there. With the trend drifting away from square trend, I predict an increase in number of cases  to 30000 fro Maharashtra by the end of 3rd lock down.

Gujrat is another state rapidly emerging with big number of cases. Although situation has not worsened much and it shows just an increase of 300 more cases compared to earlier projection.

India is majorly reflecting the trend of Maharashtra with major contribution as big as 1/3rd coming from this single state. India also seem to slowly drifting towards n=3 trend. Little scary. I see the number growing to ~ 90000 by the end of the lockdown. 

 A significant rise is observed in cases in Tamilnadu. I am not sure, what has gone wrong there, but the rise is significantly higher than any other state in India. It is already spreading at n=3 rate. That means if on day 1, number of cases is 3, then on day 2, the number will try to increase to any number between 9 to 27. Which is a scary scenario.

I wonder if the governments in these states have any action plan. Are they taking any learning from other states like Kerala, which has gone down from state no. 1 to I don't know, probably 10th or 11th.

All in all, there is no easy way out I am seeing out of this crisis for India.

How COVID numbers may stand at Lock down end in India

Everyone is fed up of COVID-19 and really looking for a day when we will start living without that fear. Every one is handling it in different ways, but every one in their mind is trying to make a guess of how the virus effect is shaping up and can we see a light at the end of the tunnel.

I also have been following it closely. Out of some conversation, I started following the growth especially in two states of India, Maharashtra and Kerala, which were competing at some point about who reports the maximum patients. We know how the two drastically different routes the two states have taken by now. So, I collected the related data about couple of states as well as for India from the site https://www.covid19india.org/ since April 06 and over the time. Based on the data, I have to tried to extrapolated it to check where will India, Maharashtra and Kerala stand at the end of the second lock down in India ends on 3rd May.

India is slightly deviating from linear correlation and slowly moving towards square correlation. I believe, the main reason could be the Maharashtra trend which pretty much every day contributes to 1/3rd to 1/2 of the total cases of India. Depending on how it varies in coming few days, by 4th May, India tally may stand between 36000 if it varies linear to 44000 it goes all hell to square dependency.

The worst effected state of India, Maharashtra has surely moved away from linear dependency and surely following a square trend. i.e. if on day 1, the number was 3, on day 2, the number will be higher than 6 ( a number otherwise possible for linear trend). With linear trend, the number on 3rd May will be somewhere near 10,300. But if it starts following polynomial trend as shown, it will be near 14,000. Surely a number we do not want.

So, Kerala, which was competing at one point with Maharashtra has performed really well. It was almost flattening the curve.  But noe, it has started again showing a linear trend. As of now, it shows no sign of going polynomial. I estimate the number to be around 525-535 on 4th May.

Maharashtra elections

A week more and Maharashtra goes into election. Lots of new developments took place in last couple of days. All should be called significant. On one side, BJP-SHIVSENA coalition (25 years old) broke, and on the other side (CONGRESS-NCP) coalition also broke.

This has made elections very intresting. It is a 5 cornered fight now. And I believe, this will really bring the real image of all the parties in front of the voters.

On one side, Shivsena is still sulking on the breaking of the partnership. They are trying to create a picture that it is all BJP's fault. It probably worked for initial 2-3 days of campaigning, but now, it has started appearing that Shivsena has no other agenda to present. Seems like Shivsena is doomed.

BJP seems to have chosen the high road. They are as far as possible neglecting what shivsena or other parties are saying regarding the breaking of coalition. They have brought their star campaigner, Modi, who is pitching once again for Development.

Seems like Modi wave is yet to be over and may help BJP.

Congress and NCP seem to have no agenda.

While Congress is trying to encash some developments like monorail, metro and worli -bandra sealink, they have no other thing to show. All these developments are part of Mumbai. What about rest of Maharashtra. No advertisement on that front.

NCP is also trying to make some profit out of the development in last 10 years. But some how they are not able to encash it. Their main power resides on the local popularity of their candidate. Some regions of Maharashtra are their forts, untouchable. At rest of the places, hardly a possibility.

The fifth corner is MNS. Raj Thackrey is another one than BJP who is pushing on development card. He has released the blue print for Maharashtra's development(available at http://mnsblueprint.org/)

A quick look shows that he has done his homework. As always, he impresses with his oratory. But on the backdrop of his Loksabha results, its difficult to say, how good he is at the moment. But, my guess is, he could be underdog.

Overall, its going to be a tough contest. Most probably, it will be a hung parliament.

I feel BJP will make the most of it, followed by NCP and Shivsena, then Congress and MNS.But its difficult to pinpoint the number of  seats each party will win. That requires a little more detailed study. 

But one thing is sure, all the leaders shouting at each other at the moment, will soon become friends once their need for each others help to form a government  becomes the major intention.

Every body in Maharashtra will be eagerly waiting for October 19. The big day