Government Panel: Half Of Indians Likely To Have Had COVID-19 By February

Government panel says that Half Of Indians Likely To Have Had COVID-19 By February. India has so far reported 7.55 million COVID-19 cases and is in second place in terms of total infections. US is currently the country with highest number of COVID-19 cases.

At least 50 per cent of Indiaâ€™s 1.3 billion people are likely to have been infected with the ongoing coronavirus by next February said government panel. This will help in slowing the spread of the virus, a member of a central government committee tasked with providing projections said on Monday.

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Government Panel: Half Of Indians Likely To Have Had COVID-19 By February

Half Of Indians Likely To Have Had COVID-19 By February: Govt Panel

After a peak in mid-September, the coronavirus infections are decreasing with 61,390 new cases reported on average each day, according to a Reuters tally.

“Our mathematical model estimates that around 30% of the population is currently infected and it could go up to 50% by February,” Manindra Agrawal, a professor at the Indian Institute for Technology in Kanpur and a committee member, told Reuters.

As per the committee’s estimate, the current spread of the virus is much higher than the central government’s serological surveys, which showed that only around 14 per cent of the population had been infected, as of September.

“We have evolved a new model which explicitly takes into account unreported cases, so we can divide infected people into two categories â€“ reported cases and infections that do not get reported,” Mr Agrawal said.

Experts have warned that infections could rise in the country as the holiday season nears, with celebrations for the festivals of Durga Puja and Diwali due this month and in mid-November, respectively.