Thread by @agrawalmanindra

@stellensatz @shekhar_mande @Ashutos61 @Sandeep_1966 Covid infections are picking up in India again. Interestingly, only a few states are contributing to this spike. Why is this happening? Our model SUTRA provides some clues. 1/n

First, let us look at Maharashtra. In the picture, blue curve is recorded daily new infections (averaged over a window of seven days) and orange curve is prediction of the model. According to the model, the latest spike is due to significant increase in contact rate. 2/n

Contact rate represents average number of people infected by an infected person in one day. For Maharashtra, it went from 0.3 to 0.5. The peak should arrive within two weeks. 3/n

Second state we analyze is Punjab. It has a peak due in March-end at around 2K infections. There are two causes for this: one, contact rate increased from 0.3 to 0.4, and two, reach increased by about 20%. 4/n

Reach parameter measures fraction of population under coverage of pandemic. This parameter is monotonically increasing. Once it stabilizes for a long period, we can assume the reach to be close to 100%. 5/n

Major states where reach has stabilized are UP and Bihar. UP in fact has all parameters stable since November. That is why there is no spike in UP. 6/n

Bihar has a similar story. Reach is stable since October. Contact rate is fluctuating a bit, but not enough to create a spike. 7/n

Looking at India, we see a gentle increase until early April followed by equally gentle decline. Reach for India is almost stable since September - it has increased by less than 7% since. The current increase is caused by increase in contact rate to 0.3 from 0.22. 8/n

Above shows there will be no "second wave" in India. The states should be able to tide over the spikes without much problems. 9/9