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?

The "10 second" rule of Plank

Picture taken from: https://www.spotebi.com/exercise-guide/up-down-plank/

So, are you trying to improve your stay in plank position for some time and you are still struggling?

I have a method that helped me to do it better.

A disclaimer here:  I am not saying that this is the technically perfect way of doing plank. But it should help you to stretch your stay in the position.

What is this "10 second rule" then?

To understand, lets go back a few days back. We all are stuck with the lockdown in  different phases in different areas. Before the lock down, I was preparing for a 10k marathon to be conducted in the month of May. I was practicing pretty fine. Basically, I was in a good shape.

But then lockdown happened.

I tried doing workout at home for few days. Later, the enthusiasm vanished and I ended up a lazy fellow. Add to that, few COVID patients were  found in the society. Even getting out of home to get milk or veggies, fruits became impossible.

Once the unlock 1.0 started, I first tried climbing up the stairs and realized, I am in a very bad shape.

So, back to workout. Designed few set of exercises for legs, upper body and core. Plank was ofcourse one of them.

7 days back I tried my first plank after a long interval. I couldn't believe, but, I failed to cross 30 sec. mark. Little unimaginable compared to my usual practice.

Second day, I unknowingly followed a method that helped me to touch 40 sec mark. So, I applied the next day again and it worked. Touched 50 sec. Next day, I could touch 60 sec mark. Four days of application led me to believe that I have a method that can help me to improve my stay in plank position. I call it a "10 sec rule"

"10 second rule"

 What unknowing thing I did on second day has nothing to do with the position in plank. I followed the regular way as shown above. The method deals with the controlled breathing. So, its a 10 second breathing pattern, I followed and it helped me.

As I start in plank position, I take a deep breathe over a period of first 3 seconds of the 10 second haul. I hold the breathe for next 4 seconds and later release it out in next 3 seconds. This makes one cycle. By the end of one cycle you complete 10 seconds. Holding the breathe kind of allows you to keep control on the core.

This way, if you want to touch 30 second mark, you have to complete only 3 cycles of controlled breathing. This makes life easier, as your task is now divided into three parts unlike earlier where you only concentrated on staying in right plank position for every passing second. With every new day arriving, your earlier cycle becomes easier and the last cycle is the one where you struggle, but with these 3 steps to follow, you some how manage to complete the cycle. The next day, even this last cycle become easier, allowing you to try one more cycle.

Starting with 40 seconds on 2nd day (first day of 10 second rule), in 7 days, today I have managed to touch to 100 seconds mark. Yes, I completed 10 cycles of controlled breathing. Today, I felt little challenging. I am not sure, if the method will help me to go beyond 100 second mark. I am going to try it anyway. But if it doesn't workout, I have another game plan to extend my stay in plank position.

As said earlier, I am not claiming that this is the right way to do plank. May be it is wrong. But it is helping me to improve my time. At the same, I feel my core little better than last week same day.

What do you think? You want to try out?

Let me know, if it helps you to increase your plank time. 

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.