Amidst the global pandemic of Coronavirus, countries are facing a tough time in keeping themselves immune and protecting their citizens. While countries like Italy, China, Spain are facing major heat and are in the advanced stages, countries like India are also fighting hard to stop the spread of this virus in the initial stages. WHO has certainly issued certain guidelines which need to be followed but certainly there is no specific formula for stopping this deadly calamity. While it’s a no brainer that there is a certain climate of fear prevailing across the globe and that’s adding to the pandemic. Between this battle to tackle the situation, stats that are coming up is putting some ray of hope to mankind.
Before we delve into the exact stats and what or how it's impacting the global Corona landscape, it’s important to understand that there are certain constraints to the analysis that is made. The major constraint is that the countries which are majorly affected have been dealing with the situation in different time frames. Hence, they are at different stages. Since the virus affects mostly the immunity system of the individuals, demographics, and culture to do play a vital role in predicting the future of the pandemic across the globe. According to Prof. Edwin Van del Heuvel, professor of statistics at TU Eindhoven, the model needs more and more accurate sets of data for better predictions and that’s a big challenge. He and his team utilized Verhulst’s logistic function to predict the expected increase of the affected populations first as a S-shaped curve and finally flattens while reaching its maxima. They tried on Chinese population data and calibrated their model almost accurately. If we follow their model, the results found to be disastrous which is happening in many of those countries.
Now, let’s take a look at India. India is at stage 3 and as per the latest records, the recorded number of cases stands at 332 with the loss of 5 lives. But it is going to enter the next stage and as per the same trend line using exponential growth, we can see that the expected number is really alarming.
If India reaches this number, it will be difficult for the administration to cater to the patients and the entire medical infrastructure will be shattered. While the central, as well as the state administrations, are doing their best to tackle the situation, the onus lies on the general citizen to be united in putting their efforts to stand strong against this malice. Now, why South Korea, Austria, China, Russia is reporting fewer new incidents? Is social distancing the only way out for countries like India? Well, yes we think as of now that’s the best solution. But please make sure you don’t fall into the traps of fake news that temperature will kill the viruses or other such kinds of stuff. That’s some story for the next article. For the time being, please follow government guidelines and let’s again go back to what statistical data more suggests us.
So, is it all negative, all bad omen that stats are showing? Is it the end? Well, certainly there is a brighter side of the story too. According to Noble laureate Michael Levitt, the increase in numbers increased exponentially initially like the ones predicted for India but then the trend changed. It started to drop linearly and the trend continued with only 8 new registered cases until yesterday. He explains it by comparing it with interest rates. For example, as he quotes “if on the first day a person receives an interest rate of 30% on their savings, the next day of 29%, and so forth, you understand that eventually, you will not earn very much.” And the fact that it is slowing down indicates necessarily that the downfall is about to come.
While this statistical analysis is proving to be true to China, Italy, Germany, and the US are still showing different behavior. Hence, statistics are proving to be the hope that the entire world wants to see. It’s that light at the end of the dark tunnel which everyone is expecting to see. Whether or when we will be able to see and at what cost, is still unknown. But numbers are genuinely giving some hope.
Until then, let’s thank all the medical and emergency professionals around the world for the tremendous amount of effort they are putting in. Let’s maintain social distance for the time being. If we come out of this crisis, friends, career, the world will be there. Our foremost importance should be isolating ourselves and abiding by the guidelines laid to us. Let us win this battle.
Model for Indian Coronavirus pandemic courtesy: Apratim Chatterjee
-Kush...
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