COVID-19 peak in India likely to be witnessed in mid-November

New Delhi, June 15: The COVID-19 peak in India will likely be witnessed in mid-November, an ICMR funded study has said.

The nation-wide lockdown delayed the onset of the peak stage of coronavirus pandemic in India. It also gave time to prepare the health system, an open access study funded by the ICMR said.

The study is not peer reviewed and was conducted by researchers from an Operations Research Group constituted by the ICMR. The study says that the lockdown shifted the peak of the pandemic and smoothened the COVID-19 curse by an estimated 34 to 76 days. This helped bring down the number of infections by 69-97 per cent.

This allowed time for the healthcare system to ramp up resources and infrastructure, the study also noted. The findings also showed intensification of public health surveillance measures with 60 per cent effectiveness was estimated to reduce the cases at peak and cumulative number of infections by 70 per cent and 26.6 per cent respectively. The study noted that the requirement of ICU beds and ventilators would reduce by 83 per cent with intensified public health measures.

The ICMR, however, said that this refers to a non-peer reviewed modelling, not carried out by ICMR and does not reflect the official position of ICMR.