Study of Epidemiological Characteristics and In-silico Analysis of the Effect of Interventions in the SARS-CoV-2 Epidemic in India

Archisman Mazumder; Mehak Arora; Vishwesh Bharadiya; Parul Berry; Mudit Agarwal; Mohak Gupta; Priyamadhaba Behera

In our study, we found a case fatality rate of 3.87% which is lower than countries like Italy (28). The explanation for a lower mortality rate due to COVID-19 infection could be the universal immunisation policy against BCG (29). Case fatality rate was higher for males (4.38%) than females (2.88%). In China, the case fatality rate was found as 2.3%, 14.8% in the above 80 years population, and 8.0% in the 70-79 years population (13) . Our estimate gives a higher value which may be due a smaller sample size or can also be because mild cases of COVID 19 have so far been missed due to limited testing capacities in India. In our study, the mortality rates for 60-79 years age group (16.18%) and equal to or above 80 years age group (20%) may be an underestimation or overestimation of the actual mortality rate as the total number of deaths is still small and many are still hospitalized. The median age for recovered patients (36 years) is lower than the median ages for the deceased (65 years) implying younger patients have a higher chance of recovery. This is in accordance with findings from other countries (13, 30) . If we consider all the patients, males account for 66.34% of patients, implying more males are generally affected. 75.0% of the deceased were also males which show that males are more vulnerable agreeing with previous studies (31, 32).