By Express News Service
BENGALURU: The ongoing wave of SARS-CoV-2 should peak by the end of this month, and the numbers will start going down in February, said Professor of Mathematics & Computer Science, IIT Kanpur, Manindra Agrawal. He told TNIE that the prediction is based on his mathematical model called SUTRA.
“SUTRA is a mathematical model to capture the trajectory of a pandemic. It is governed by three main parameters: Contact rate (how fast is infection spreading), reach (what fraction of population is the pandemic active on) and detection ratio (ratio of detected cases and actual cases). The model is able to estimate values of these parameters from daily new cases time series. When the values of these parameters change, the model recomputes new values using recent data,” said Agrawal.
On the question whether there is uniformity in numbers rising and dipping across the states, Prof Agrawal said there will be no uniformity in these numbers. “Different states will rise and fall at different times. Although the difference is not expected to be large, since this wave is spreading fast. It appears to be manageable, with low hospitalisation rates,” he said, adding that while R-Value in this wave is much higher than the previous wave, the “pattern of spread is very similar to the previous waves. It started with the metros before moving to other cities, and finally to the countryside. I don’t think that it has reached the hinterland yet, but will reach soon”.
He said that to a large extent, the current wave is caused by loss of immunity against Omicron. “In previous waves, the immunity loss was lesser comparatively,” he added. The mathematical modelling of the pandemic, based on data available in public domain, has suggested its curve, but it would be incorrect to say that it could be used as a model to predict future waves. “It is not possible to predict the timing of the next wave as that depends on when a new mutant arrives and spreads,” said Prof Agrawal.
