We published an article on the
momentum of the second wave of Covid-19 in India on May 13 and concluded that the numerical peak of the second wave got over on May 6. It has been suggested that this may be artifactual because the daily number of tests for Covid-19 has come down in some states and therefore the number of new cases may be underestimated. However, the fact that the test positivity rate is also decreasing (from 22.6% on May 8 to 19% on May 15) concurrent with the decline in number of new cases supports our contention that the second wave peak is over. Is there any other corroborating evidence that it is over?
Why India doesn t need a nationwide lockdown
We used a novel method to analyse daily numbers of new cases. This shows deceleration of the second wave started on April 12.
Share Via Email
| A+A A-
Nurses of a Covid hospital offer prayer to mark International Nurses Day, which commemorates the birthday of Florence Nightingale, in Kolkata. (Photo | PTI)
The dynamics of epidemics can be likened to basic principles of physics, because the host-virus interaction has its physical attributes. In physics, momentum is defined as mass X velocity. In an epidemic, the number of active cases at a given point in time is like mass. The velocity is the speed of spread. The momentum of the epidemic is therefore the number of active cases X speed of spread momentum may accelerate or decelerate.