What is happening with COVID-19 in badly hit Delhi? Some observations from the data and modelling. Thread. 1/5
1) Cases are not slowing down. Doubling time over the past month has hovered around 14 days (its current value) - much worse than the national average.
1) Cases are not slowing down. Doubling time over the past month has hovered around 14 days (its current value) - much worse than the national average.
2) Test positivity has been rising to dizzying heights (about 30%), which suggests strongly that "case detection" - the proportion of cases detected in testing - is falling. Simply put: testing is not keeping up with infection, but this could be changing now. 2/5
3) As least some (most?) of Delhi's missing deaths have been added back in. E.g., if we assume constant case detection, then we're almost there. With case detection down about 40%, there are still over 1000 deaths missing. (Second scenario is still conservative.) 3/5
4) If we assume an infection fatality rate of 0.5% and about 1000 missing deaths (second scenario), then over 15 lakh people have so far been infected, with about a third currently active. This means possibly worse still to come. A strong argument not to ease up. 4/5
I had previously compared Delhi and Mumbai and noted that Mumbai was quite far "ahead" of Delhi in its COVID path. I think what's happening at the moment bears this assessment out. Delhi is still some way from peak. 5/5
