How would COVID bahave in August - few projections

Entering August with COVID by side 

Entering in the month of August, COVID is still here by our side. Situation seems grim, worse than earlier, as number of active cases as well as the count of deceased patients are increasing day by day. Yesterday we crossed the mark of 50,000 cases in a day. Closely competing with Brazil with US counts also in range now.

On the other side, few other numbers like reduced mortality rate to 2.18%, recovery rate of 64.6% and slightly increased doubling rate of 21 days can reduce the anxiety.

My projections of 16.75 lakhs for India might be crossed by coupe of thousands of more cases after today’s count is added. This number would reach to a huge count of 28.5 lakhs by August 15.

Maharashtra just doesn’t like competition. Just like what Delhi tried few days back, Andhra Pradesh also managed to cross Maharashtra’s per day count for2 consecutive days. Seems like not a good idea. Maharashtra immediately went to the next zone. The state which was lingering around 9000 cases suddenly shot up to 11.5 K cases yesterday. Just like Delhi, if AP also gives up and starts recovering, there is no better news than that. I see Maharashtra crossing 5.25 L mark by Mid-August. While Andhra Pradesh may touch a number of somewhere around 3.8 Lakhs. This number for AP seems little unimaginable, but is a projection based on current rising trend. It may happen that the rising pattern may not continue and would restrict the rise upto 3 L count.

Tamilnadu is keeping a steady state rate and reach its decided mark of  2.4 L with one day left. It would further grow upto 3.5 L in coming 15 days.

For Karnataka, looks like the trend would continue for some days and may increase upto 2.5- 2.6 lakh cases by mid-August.

UP also is following the predicted trend and would reach its number of ~ 85K today. In coming 15 days, we may see the number rising upto 1.85 lakhs.

Telangana seems to have got the spread under control. The number has drastically reduced the number  to ~ 60000 compared what I projected for the state. We won’t see it crossing 1 lakhs count by mid of the month. (98000).

Delhi and Gujrat are recovering states now. Delhi’s count is exceptionally lower than the projected count. It is low to the extent that I project the same number of 1.65 lakhs again till the mid of the August.

Gujrat is following the projections. Would reach around 62000 by today and may go on to 85000 by 15 August.

So, some good stories, some worrisome ones. One aspect is the rising number of cases is making the pandemic look weaker as mortality effect is getting lower with it. Few other stories that are making rounds is about the cases where people even didn’t know they probably had COVID. A recent SERO survey in some regions of Mumbai showed that as many as 57%  people (who did not report for COVID) tested in the survey already have antigens present. I see people in Mumbai loosing interest in taking precautions now. Contrary to few days back, now more and more people without masks are seen moving around. That makes me thinking, should we and how long should we keep worrying about this pandemic?