Transmission Dynamics of COVID-19 and Impact on Public Health Policy

B Shayak; Mohit Manoj Sharma; Richard H Rand; Awadhesh Kumar Singh; Anoop Misra

In mid-December 2019, the first cases of a hitherto unknown coronavirus were reported in Wuhan, China [1] . After a slow month and a half, the virus spread through the rest of the world with a ferocity that has taken doctors, scientists as well as public health officials by surprise. As we write this, the number of cases globally is almost 4,20,000 with more than 18,500 fatalities on record. China remains the most severely affected country with 81,000 cases, Italy is a close second with almost 70,000 and USA is third at 55,000. Whereas the rate of growth of new cases has slowed down to a crawl in China on account of the earlier start of the outbreak as well as several other factors, the growth rates in the rest of the world remain frighteningly high [2] . The worldwide explosion in the number of cases, together with a very high mortality rate in some countries, has resulted in extreme public health measures being adopted across the globe. Full lockdowns have already been imposed in Italy, Spain, France and in California and New York State in USA. These lockdowns followed a slew of increasingly strict social distancing measures such as cancellation of sporting events, suspension of classes, limitation of public gatherings to size 50, and closure of bars, discotheques and other entertainment venues. On Monday, a nationwide lockdown was declared in the United Kingdom, after weeks of deliberation and debate on the adverse socio-economic impacts of such a move, as the growth in new Coronavirus cases kept accelerating relentlessly. Just yesterday, a similar move was announced in India, and today in New Zealand, both ostensibly less-affected countries, after several days of steady and continuous increments in the numbers of cases.