A list of contributors to this piece is provided at the end of this report. For detailed analytic formulation and code, please click here for the technical preprint [direct download link, please check downloads folder].

Almost one in four people in Delhi had been infected by the novel coronavirus by July 10 according to a serological survey conducted by the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) [The Hindu; Indian Express 1; Indian Express 2]. The survey found that 22.86% of the 21,387 serology samples collected across 11 districts of Delhi had detected IgG antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. This implies that Delhi, with approximately 20 million (2 crore) people, had a total number of cases standing somewhere around 4.6 Million (46 lakhs) by July 10. Delhi has reported only 133,310 cases and 3,907 through July 29 [covid19india.org]. On July 10, the number of cases reported for Delhi stood at 109,140 and number of deaths at 3,300. This gives you an underreporting factor for case counts at 42; it tells you that only 2.4% of cases are being detected and also implies that the infection fatality rate (IFR) for Delhi is of the order of 0.07% (3300/4.6M) or 717 per million if we believe the reported death data. The IFR seems low compared to estimates worldwide [median IFR 0.27% across 36 studies worldwide according to Ioannidis 2020] which is indeed a good news. …

The Dilemma: Humanity is facing a defining crisis, fighting against an invisible enemy with every resource in our intellectual, socio-political and emotional toolkit. Unfortunately, a dynamic has developed in this conversation which undermines our common goal. The fields of Public Health and Economics often find themselves pitted against one another, with experts and non-experts engaged in vigorous debates over the relative importance of health and economics. Such partisanship is misplaced. We all wish to minimize human suffering and promote well-being. We need to save lives and save livelihoods. An omnibus solution derived in a complex-systems, cost-benefit framework is needed. …

This article completes a three part series on the novel corona virus outbreak in India. You can read the first part (pre-lockdown) here and the second part (studying lockdown) here. You can also access a related pre-print here. All data source, code and interactive plots are available at covind19.org.

India, a democracy of 1.34 billion people has been aggressive in adopting strong public health intervention measures including sealing its borders, introducing mandatory social distancing including a lockdown early in the course of the COVID-19 epidemic. India crossed 100 cases on March 14 (2 deaths) and crossed 10,000 cases on April 14 (358 deaths). The rates at which the number of cases and deaths have doubled in India (Figures 1a and 1b respectively) are slower than other COVID-19 affected countries at the same stage of the epidemic. There have been several speculative hypotheses around this observation of slower spread, including genetics, immunity, temperature, humidity, BCG vaccinations, use of antimalarials, younger population and possibly their multifactorial interactions. …

This article is the second one of a three part series on the novel corona virus outbreak in India. You can read the first part (pre-lockdown) here and the final part (unlocking the lockdown) here. You can also access a related pre-print here. All data source, code and interactive plots are available at covind19.org.

India, a democracy of 1.34 billion people has been aggressive in adOn the evening of March 24, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a three-week nationwide central lockdown — starting Wednesday, March 25 at midnight, to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. This is the biggest lockdown in the history of the world happening in a democracy of 1.34 billion people. At that time India had reported 536 COVID-19 cases and 11 fatalities. The people of India received essentially 3 hours’ notice to prepare for a three-week long lockdown. This is a wrenching decision for any nation, particularly for India with 22% of the population living below the poverty line, 90+% of its workforce employed in the informal sector, and poor housing conditions for one in six urban dwellers. As debates rage around the world regarding India’s central lockdown, and while policy experts are analyzing the timing, management and implementation of such a monumental decision, we present our thoughts on lockdown-related issues through a data-centric lens. As a follow-up to our article on Medium.com on Saturday, March 21, 2020, we want to clarify the role of epidemiological models, projections and predictions in informing critical policy decisions. …

This article is the first one of a three part series on the novel corona virus outbreak in India. You can read the second part (studying lockdown) here. You can read the third and final part (unlocking the lockdown) here. You can also access a related pre-print here. All data source, code and interactive plots are available at covind19.org.

The following summary was prepared by the COV-IND-19 Study Group, an interdisciplinary group of scholars and data scientists (authors at end). An accompanying detailed report can be downloaded here (direct download link, check downloads folder). (Article updates are listed at end).

Four months since the first case of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has engulfed the world and COVID-19 has been declared a global pandemic. The number of confirmed cases worldwide stands at a staggering 303,594 (as of 6:00 PM EST March 21, 2020, Microsoft bing coronavirus tracker). Of these, only 315 confirmed cases are from India (Figure 1), the world’s largest democracy with a population of 1.34 billion (compare China at 1.39 billion and USA at 325.7 …