Predictions, role of interventions and effects of a historic national lockdown in India's response to the COVID-19 pandemic: data science call to arms

Debashree Ray; Maxwell Salvatore; Rupam Bhattacharyya; Lili Wang; Shariq Mohammed; Soumik Purkayastha; Aritra Halder; Alexander Rix; Daniel Barker; Michael Kleinsasser; Yiwang Zhou; Peter Song; Debraj Bose; Mousumi Banerjee; Veerabhadran Baladandayuthapani; Parikshit Ghosh; Bhramar Mukherjee

While India seems to have done relatively well in controlling the number of confirmed cases compared to other countries in the early phase of the pandemic (Figure 2) , there is a critical missing or unknown component in this assessment: "The number of truly affected cases," which depends on the extent of testing, the accuracy of the test results and, in particular, the frequency and scale of testing of asymptomatic cases who may have been exposed. The frequency of testing has been low in India. According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), only 130,792 subjects have been tested as of April 9. 4 When there is no approved vaccine or drug for treating COVID-19, entering phase 2 or phase 3 of escalation will have devastating consequences on both the already overstretched healthcare system of India, and India's large at-risk sub-populations (Supplementary Table 1 ). As seen for other countries like the US or Italy, COVID-19 enters gradually and then explodes suddenly. We provide a table listing other highly affected countries along with their first reported case, initial interventions, crude fatality rates, and active case counts in Supplementary Table 2 for reference.