Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SD)
Bengaluru, Apr 22: A study shows that unless measures are taken to trace and isolate existing COVID-19 cases, the two metropolitan cities, Bengaluru and Mumbai are likely to see the second wave of coronavirus infections once the lockdown is lifted on May 3.
Over 18 scientists from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, have made this probable study using a mathematical and city-based epidemic simulator.
Various adjustable parameters such as disease progression parameter, daily contact rate are set. The settings can be run through a filter of 11 different 'intervention' settings, which includes no government intervention towards infinite lockdown, a lockdown for 25 days and 40 days which represents the present scenario.
The modelling of the 'interventions' is done from the day of nationwide lockdown on March 25. Log scale data showed that in the total absence of intervention the number of fatalities by May 1 would be about 28. The modelling further predicts that if the lockdown is not continued by June 1, the number of deaths could reach 23 by July 1 and 33 by August 1.
The data by the Department of Health and Family Welfare stated that there had been four deaths in the city so far. Aggressive contact tracing, testing, and isolation that can change the course of the epidemic were not taken into account for the number projections, scientists said.
IISc professor Rajesh Sundaresan from the Department of Electrical Communication Engineering the corresponding author of the paper said that the model was agent-based, using a fine-grained mathematical replica of a city, replicating various interaction spaces such as households, schools and workplaces.
"If there are 10 million people in Bengaluru, the city's model also has that many individuals," Sundaresan said. As per him the other parameters that are taken into consideration were population densities, age distribution, household size distribution, commute distances among several others.
The researchers, in their model, seeded the infections in the simulated cities in order to test how the infection would spread under different circumstances in the absence of restrictions.
In the findings, the researchers assumed that cases would continue to be isolated with 90 per cent compliance.