Monday, May 25, 2020

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 4th 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 4th 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 4th 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 31st 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 4th after US, Brazil and Russia.  Difficult days are waiting ahead. 
                                                            SO, Gear up.

Monday, May 18, 2020

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".



Monday, May 11, 2020

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.

Monday, May 4, 2020

COVID-19 Projections for 3rd lockdown in India

Looks like my projections for India and Maharashtra fall well in line. But I am glad that Kerala proved me wrong and managed to deviate by at least 15 patients less than projected. While India today stands near 43000  (projected 44000) and Maharashtra at 12900(projected 14000), we can surely say that India and probably due to bigger contribution of Maharashtra in it, are currently following a polynomial trend (with n=2). Well, it is still not absolutely squarish, but, its almost there.
With the third lock down of 2 weeks starting today, I have conducted another projection till 17th May. Here it goes:

 With the polynomial dependence, India is looking to  reach to a big number of almost 78000-79000. One of the projections I came across had mentioned that the peak for India will be crossed somewhere around 23rd May with an estimated number of patients of ~75000. 
I tried to extrapolate the data to that date and it seems India will touch a mark of 1 lakh on 24th May. So, a lot now depend on how India perform in these 2 weeks. If we can curb down the trend. Will we be able to deviate away from this squarish trend. Now the fight really has come down to these 2 weeks. This period will decide, whether we have crossed the peak or we are going beyond squarish dependency.


Story of Maharashtra is nothing different. Infact, I feel, India is picking most of the signatures from the trends of Maharashtra. By the end of third lock down, which evidently has to be followed in the major cities of Maharashtra, it will be touching around 27000 mark. A lot now depends on how the Thakrey government manages to put a brake on this squarish trend.


I tried to look at other two states Gujrat and Delhi also, which have also started showing some rising trends.

Gujrat has started showing big rise in last couple of days. Earlier, it even did not exist on the radar. Till 15th April, it was going smooth. But then it sharted changing the gear and now it has starting picking up the squarish trend. If not controlled soon, Gujrat is on the way to become like Maharashtra. If deviated towards linear trend, we expect it to touch ~7500 cases, but if continuing with the exisiting squarish trend, we can see a number of ~11500 on board.

Delhi on the other hand is an ON and OFF case. It faces a situation that leads to sudden rise in numbers, then every thing seems coming under control. Again it looses its hold and the numbers start rising. But all in all, the situation is not as worse as  Maharashtra and Gujrat. We expect number of cases to be between 6000 to 7500 by 17th of May.


There are few other states which have started showing the high trends. These includes states like Tamilnadu, M.P. U.P and most recently Punjab is adding in.
I am following their trends. I feel these may not be permanent trends and would probably loose steam in a day or two. So, not putting out their data and number as yet. If they keep performing the same in coming days, will put separate post for these states.