July end COVID19 projections

This last week seems terrible. The kind of spurt we saw in last many days was unexpected. Yesterday's count was 45000+. I did not expect. Are coming days going to report bigger numbers than this? We need to understand the cycle it follows. Mumbai is a good example. Since beginning Mumbai was heading the race. While other cities were reporting the count in 10's or 100's, Mumbai was reporting in thousands. back then, as much as 60-70% of Mahrashtra's total count was coming from Mumbai. Now after a period of almost 3 months, Mumbai is lagging behind. Pune, Kalyan, Thane have overtaken Mumbai. The famous hotspots of Dharavi, Dadar, Sion, Worli are longer uttered in the news. Of course, the counts are still there, but they do not attract any more attention. This is a cycle which will be followed in every new red zone area. The point is how big spike we allow the zone to get and how quickly we nab it.

Delhi at one point started competing with Mumbai/Maharashtra. But, it has fallen in line pretty quickly and actually is on the way to good recovery. Now the new competitors have come up in the form of Bangalore/Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. They are really emerging as big threat to the invincible position of Maharashtra. All the cycle will complete and we will get all the place back to normal, but the question is when?

The we see big spikes every other day, we see the recovery rate improving and mortality rate decreasing every day. As of now more than 63% people have recovered and the mortality rate has come down to 2.4% from 3.2%.

My projection for India till 22nd July was 12.3 Lakh. This would have gone fine had we not seen the sudden surge of 45000 cases yesterday. With this the dynamics change a bit and we could see a big rise to 16.75 lakhs by the end of this month.

Last week, my overestimated Maharashtra's number of COVID-19 cases. Probably, Maharashtra did not like it and so, this time took care that my projection seems underestimated. My projection was crossed on the last day. I believe, the number for cases in Maharashtra is going to rise significantly and we can see a number of 4.2 lakhs crossed by the end of the month.

Tamilnadu projections were in line. It stands at 1.86 lakhs cases today. There is a kind of change in the trend. We can say now there is a kind of linear variation in the number of cases reported, although the slope is pretty steep. Tamilnadu seems to have lost its curve. I see the number rising upto 2.3-2.4 lakh cases by the month end.

Gujrat and Delhi are two states which was moved away from the limelight of COVID news. Both are doing pretty well. While Delhi is showing signs of recovery, the rate of growth in Gujrat is minimized, though in recovery mode yet. If all things go well for Delhi, we won't see much increase in coming days, but if things twist a bit, the number may reach up to 1.65 lakhs. The numbers for Gujrat also doesn't show much increase. It may rest some where around 62,000 .

Uttar Pradesh reached  pretty close to my projection of 57K. There is still an increasing trend here with the projections showing upto 85000 cases by month end.

Karnataka, as expected is showing newer and newer spikes every day. It crossed my projection by a big margin. But it seems, now it is settled in a new zone and may stay here for some time. By the end of the month, we may see around 1.25 lakh cases reported for the state.

The big surprise of the month is Andhra Pradesh. The cases are rising like anything here. I guess, after  Maharashtra, AP is the only state to report more than 6000 cases in a day. It crossed my earlier projections of 50000 and unlike Karnataka, it is not yet settled in a new zone. The picture could be scary in coming days and we may see a steep rise to 1.3 lakhs by the end of the month.

For Telangana, the projections as of now are pretty spot on. It very close to the projected mark of 50000. We could see the number rising steadily to 75,000 cases by July end.

The sudden spikes we are seeing is actually not a worrisome situation. The number is rising because the number of testing are increasing. While it may indicate that the controlling COVID spread is not much in our hand now, but recovering out of it is largely possible.

Let pray for the best.

COVID-19: One Week long projection post mid july

How would you call the COVID-19 situation in India for the last week. In contrast to what I hear around, I would say, the situation in India is improving.

Lets see the reasons why I feel so:

- Recovery rate has gone up to 63%. So, there is almost 2/3rd chance of survival for every person getting infected by COVID

- The mortality rate has now reduced down to ~2.5%, way down from 3.2% in a 10 days duration.This is happening because of more and more testing. Today's report said, we did record 3.2 lakh testing in a day. This implies that the possibility of death because of COVID-19 is getting low. It may mean,  most of the people around can do fine with a little low panic level. Of course, precautions are necessary, if you don't want to fall in that very low 2.5% mortality set.

Coming down to numbers.

I am happy to see that India deviated significantly from my mid-July projection of 10.25 lakhs. Good to see the lowered down number. This shows the kind of control we are getting on the COVID spread. In my June end post I projected 11.5 lakhs, which I corrected to 10.25 lakhs last week. But in reality, today its standing at 9.75 lakhs. Some one may call it wrong projections, but I would call it corrections, because of the day to day actions taken by the government and other contributing people in the fight. You might be seeing big spikes in recent times. If those numbers are worrying you, the expected spikes were much bigger than the current ones and its all the credit to the steps taken to curb the spread. Going with the current scenario, I see the number reaching a mark of 12- 12.3 lakhs by 22nd July. I would be surprised if the number crosses this mark before that time.

The major contributor, Maharashtra is showing some big spikes reaching upto 8k per day. In spite, its number fell short of my projections of 3.25 for mid July. One of the reasons behind this lag is the control over the spread within Mumbai. At one point Mumbai was reporting 2000+ cases per day, which has now reduced down to less than 1000 cases per day. Means Mumbai has  probably crossed the peak. The big number which we are seeing is because of the rest of Maharashtra. Places like Thane, Pune, Aurangabad  are moving towards their peak and reporting higher and higher number every day. This shall too pass very soon. In coming week, I see the number touching 3.3 lakh cases by July 22. Going by this, we have gained 1 weeks time to reach that mark.

Tamilnadu also has shown some improvements. As a result, the number was restricted to 1.52 lakhs instead of projected 1.75 lakhs. In coming week, the number may reach 1.8 - 1.9 lakh case. 

Delhi has given a big surprise. Last week, I revised the projections for Delhi from 1.75 lakhs to 1.25 lakhs. And today we see, the number is even lower than the revised projection. Last week I also said that Delhi is on way to recovery and that looks actually happening. There are no surprising spikes and even per day rise rate is also decreasing. If it continues, we can see the number restricted to 135000 by 22nd July.

One state that has come up in the picture is Karnataka. This week, it replaced Gujrat from the 4th position. I did a projection of 47000 cases by mid-July, with a worse case scenario of 65000 cases. Luckily, my normal scenario prevailed and we see today's Karnataka number of 47253 cases. Although, now, am projecting a rise upto 68000 by July 22 for Karnataka, the number may show some variations, considering the Karnataka government is taking some very strict steps to get a control on the COVID rise. Lets hope for the best.

There are couple of other states which are showing some significant rise in last few days. But, I do not think, any of these states would try to take up the place of Mahrashtra or Tamilnadu. I am listing down projections for some of these states down here:

State                                22nd July Projections
----------------------------------------------------------
UP                                        57000
TEL                                      50000
AP                                        50000

I wish my projections go wrong and all of them fall short of the target.

COVID-19 -Mid July Projections

Half of the year is gone. Come July and what is happening at the COVID-19 front now for India.

With the number of cases pretty fast, all seems getting more and more worried. But I will start on good note.

Lets talk about the doubling rate.  The doubling rate of cases has increase from last time 17 days to 20 days now. Some reports suggested that the doubling rate of 30+ days means things are well in control.

Now, a more important factor - mortality rate. We are doing even better here. The mortality rate has reduced from 3.2% to 2.8%. This is good news.

Third thing is the recovery rate. India's recovery rate has increased to 60%

Coming to Country and state wise projections.

India has found a lot new contributors to increase its counts. Of course Maharashtra is in no mood to give away its premium position. Still, I would say, India is in a better situation then what I projected at the end of the month of June. I am revising my projections for the total number of cases for India down to 10.25 lakhs from the earlier projection of 11.5 lakhs.

 

When it comes to State wise contributions, there is no competition to Maharashtra. It has single handedly contributed more than 2 lakh cases by now. With per day cases rising to whopping 7,000 cases, there is no one to challenge Maharashtra. In between, Delhi did attempted it for a day or two. But it learnt its lesson pretty quickly and has now fallen in line towards recovery. By 15th July, Maharashtra may touch a number around 3.2 lakhs. If it shows recovery sign, it may reduce the number to 3 lakhs. In any case this is a far better situation than my earlier projection of 3.75 lakhs. Means, some measures have been taken and probably they are showing their results.

The nearest competitor is Tamilnadu. It has neither improved nor worsened its situation. The projection for Tamilnadu stays at 1.75 lakhs as projected earlier.

After learning a lesson, when it attempted to surpass Maharashtra's per day count  for a day or two, Delhi has not only controlled but also has started showing signs of recovery. Last few days improvements if considered, Delhi would be found around 1.25 lakh cases compared to earlier projection of 1.75 lakhs. Even in little worse situation, I don't see the number going beyond 1.5 lakhs.

 

If there is one state which has shown a dramatic shift, its Gujrat. Till May 13, it was the leading state after Maharashtra, while Tamilnadu and Delhi were trying to catch up with it. But since then, it started loosing its position and is now settled at 4th position. The count is also pretty low compared to other 3 states. I don't see the number going beyond 45,000 by 15th July. It may too happen that it will loose it 4th position also by then.

 

So, which state may takes its position? The surprising name is Karnataka. While we were listening to the Bangalore model of controlling COVID-19, suddenly we are seeing bigger and bigger spikes for the states. Now, am seeing two scenarios here. If the current trend of lets say per day almost 2000 cases keep continuing, then the count may go up to 47,000 cases. But, if the gradient of increasing cases day seems increasing, then an increase upto 65,000 is also on the cards. So, we are looking at a new beast emerging on the platform. Better control it in time.

 

One of the other states gaining interest in Uttar Pradesh. Although the number seems increasing, the projections seem to reach up to 38000 cases, which is still a number under control.

 

With the current numbers, we have crossed Russia and are at the 3rd position, behind USA and Brazil. Looks like we will be here for some time. No competition to topple us down as yet. Will update the status as always by next Monday. But, am sure, the situation will improve further in coming time. Till then,

STAY HOME, STAY SAFE.



 

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For earlier projections:

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COVID-19 mid July projection

Half of the year is gone. Come July and what is happening at the COVID-19 front now for India.

With the number of cases pretty fast, all seems getting more and more worried. But I will start on good note.

Lets talk about the doubling rate.  The doubling rate of cases has increase from last time 17 days to 20 days now. Some reports suggested that the doubling rate of 30+ days means things are well in control.

Now, a more important factor - mortality rate. We are doing even better here. The mortality rate has reduced from 3.2% to 2.8%. This is good news.

Third thing is the recovery rate. India's recovery rate has increased to 60%

Coming to Country and state wise projections.

India has found a lot new contributors to increase its counts. Of course Maharashtra is in no mood to give away its premium position. Still, I would say, India is in a better situation then what I projected at the end of the month of June. I am revising my projections for the total number of cases for India down to 10.25 lakhs from the earlier projection of 11.5 lakhs.

 

When it comes to State wise contributions, there is no competition to Maharashtra. It has single handedly contributed more than 2 lakh cases by now. With per day cases rising to whopping 7,000 cases, there is no one to challenge Maharashtra. In between, Delhi did attempted it for a day or two. But it learnt its lesson pretty quickly and has now fallen in line towards recovery. By 15th July, Maharashtra may touch a number around 3.2 lakhs. If it shows recovery sign, it may reduce the number to 3 lakhs. In any case this is a far better situation than my earlier projection of 3.75 lakhs. Means, some measures have been taken and probably they are showing their results.

The nearest competitor is Tamilnadu. It has neither improved nor worsened its situation. The projection for Tamilnadu stays at 1.75 lakhs as projected earlier.

After learning a lesson, when it attempted to surpass Maharashtra's per day count  for a day or two, Delhi has not only controlled but also has started showing signs of recovery. Last few days improvements if considered, Delhi would be found around 1.25 lakh cases compared to earlier projection of 1.75 lakhs. Even in little worse situation, I don't see the number going beyond 1.5 lakhs.

 

If there is one state which has shown a dramatic shift, its Gujrat. Till May 13, it was the leading state after Maharashtra, while Tamilnadu and Delhi were trying to catch up with it. But since then, it started loosing its position and is now settled at 4th position. The count is also pretty low compared to other 3 states. I don't see the number going beyond 45,000 by 15th July. It may too happen that it will loose it 4th position also by then.

 

So, which state may takes its position? The surprising name is Karnataka. While we were listening to the Bangalore model of controlling COVID-19, suddenly we are seeing bigger and bigger spikes for the states. Now, am seeing two scenarios here. If the current trend of lets say per day almost 2000 cases keep continuing, then the count may go up to 47,000 cases. But, if the gradient of increasing cases day seems increasing, then an increase upto 65,000 is also on the cards. So, we are looking at a new beast emerging on the platform. Better control it in time.

 

One of the other states gaining interest in Uttar Pradesh. Although the number seems increasing, the projections seem to reach upto 38000 cases, which is still a number under control.

 

With the current numbers, we have crossed Russia and are at the 3rd position, behind USA and Brazil. Looks like we will be here for some time. No competition to topple us down as yet. Will update the status as always by next Monday. But, am sure, the situation will improve further in coming time. Till then,

STAY HOME, STAY SAFE.



 

 

 

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.