COVID-19 Epidemic Dynamics and Population Projections from Early Days of Case Reporting in a 40 million population from Southern India

Rashmi Pant; Lincoln Priyadarshi Choudhry; Jammy Guru Rajesh; Vijay V Yeldandi

similar population densities as Telangana. Optimisation algorithms were used to 23 get basic reproduction rate for different phases of nonpharmaceutical 24 interventions rolled by the government. Peak accumulation is projected towards 25 end of July with 36% of the population being infected by August 2020 if the 26 population lockdown or social distancing mechanism is not continued. The 27 number of deaths assuming no intervention is projected to be 488000 (95% CI: 28 (329400, 646600)). A draconian enforcement of population lockdown combined 29 with hand and face hygiene adherence would reduce the transmission by at least 30 99.7% whereas partial social distancing and hygiene would reduce it by 51.2%. 31 Transmission parameters reported should be interpreted with caution as they are 32 population aggregated and do not consider unique characteristics of 33 susceptibility among micro-clusters and vulnerable individuals. More data will 34 need to be collected to optimize transmission parameters and evaluate the full 35 complexity, to simulate real world scenarios in the models. The announcement of the novel corona Virus (COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2) as pandemic was 51 made on January 30 th 2020 [1] . The first case of COVID-19 was detected in India on January 52 30 th , 2020. As of 30 th March 2020, more than 1250 cases had been identified in India, with 32 53 deaths and 102 cases have been discharged after treatment [2] . Many key aspects about the 54 disease dynamics are not known. To improve the understanding about the virus many 55 researchers continue to contribute through peer review journals, blogs, reports and social media 56 platforms [3]. One of the key endeavours among these knowledge products is the quest to 57 quantify the burden of disease through the use of mathematical modelling [4,5,6] so that public 58 health systems can prepare for emergency response. 59