When will the coronavirus pandemic end? This is a question everyone is asking, but no one has definite answer yet? However, senior Health Ministry officials predict that the pandemic may end in India in mid-September this year.
Dr Anil Kumar, Deputy Director General (Public Health), Directorate General of Health Services of the Ministry of Health and Family welfare, made this prediction in a recent article published in Epidemiology International Journal. Rupali Roy, the co-author of the article, is serving as Deputy Assistant Director General (Leprosy) of Directorate General of Health Services, Health Ministry. Their prediction is based on Bailey’s Model, where Relative Removal Rate is considered for reaching a conclusion.
“When the number of infected is equal to the number of removed patients, the coefficient will reach 100% threshold, then this pandemic will be over,” IANS quoted Dr Kumar as saying.
According to Kumar, the Relative Removal Rate has increased from 42% on May 19 to 50% now and it will reach 100% in the middle of September 2020. However, he noted that all the mathematical models are not absolute, and the results also depend upon the quality of data available.
India is the 5th worst-hit COVID-19 country
Despite the implementation of a series of lockdown, India is witnessing a rapidly increasing number of COVID-19 cases. As of today (June 7), the number of confirmed cases in the country has reached 2,46,628 and as many as 6,929 people have lost their lives to this condition, according to data on the Union Health Ministry website. Globally, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases stands at 6,663,304 including 392,802 deaths, as per the World Health Organization (WHO) latest report.
With 9,887 new COVID-19 cases recorded on Saturday – the biggest one-day spike so far – India has now become the 5th worst coronavirus-hit country in the world surpassing Spain with around 244,000 cases. A day before (on Friday), India took over Italy, one of the biggest sufferers of the disease. Today as many as 19 Indian states have their tallies of confirmed cases in four or more digits. Also, five states now have five-digit tallies, including Maharashtra (82968), Tamil Nadu (30152), Delhi (27654), Gujarat (19592), and Rajasthan (10331). Maharashtra is running on top in terms of total confirmed cases, active cases, recoveries and deaths. In terms of fatality cases, Gujarat is ranked second, followed by Delhi.
COVID-19 might become endemic, says WHO
With no cure for COVID-19 found yet, some experts fear that the Coronavirus pandemic may likely turn into an endemic. During a press conference last month, WHO emergencies director Dr Mike Ryan stated that the COVID-19 infection may never go away and has a possibility of becoming “just another endemic virus in our communities.”
According to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), endemic refers to the constant presence and/or usual prevalence of a disease or infectious agent in a population within a geographic area. For example, diseases like malaria and chickenpox that still exist despite the presence of vaccines. Many studies also indicate that there will be waves of the Coronavirus pandemic. This means that even if a place has flattened out its COVID-19 curve, the disease may return after some time and affect large number of people.
With inputs from IANS