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Is Corona Overrated in India?



In India, around 12 lakh people are diagnosed with cancer every year. Sadly around 8 lakh die of the same, every year. Cancer has a case fatality rate of over 66%. One woman dies of cervical cancer every 8mins in our country. But as of May 25, two months into the lockdown, only around 1.4 lakh people  have been tested positive for Covid19, and of them, only 4021 have died which brings the case fatality rate to 2.87%. So, Is corona really the killer virus, or Is it overrated?

Remember, We have arrived at the present figure only because of all the strict measures taken such as lockdown, social distancing, personal protection, quarantine, testing, isolation etc. But what would have happened if the virus was allowed to follow its natural course? Lets look at some statistics.

On March 25, at the beginning of lockdown, there were 562 active cases. Lets consider there was only one case who was not isolated. Preliminary studies have estimated a global R0 value of 2-3. Let us consider the one person spreads the virus to two others i.e R0 value of 2. The serial interval of COVID19 is estimated to be 5days, i.e the time interval between appearance of symptoms in the primary contact and the secondary contact.

So In an year of 365days, the virus would have been propagated 73times exponentially beginning from the single case in a geometric fashion of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16..It would have resulted in a total mind boggling number of 4722366482869645213696. To give a perspective India’s total population is just 1350000000. And the virus would have comfortably cover our entire population in just 5 months of time.

So beyond doubt the whole country would have been infected with the virus in a short span. Even if 100 crore people are infected, 2.87 crore people would have died with the current mortality rate of 2.87%, which is around four times the total number of people who die every year. To give a perspective, Do you remember the gruesome Tsunami of 2004 and the horrifying piles of dead dumped in the sea shores.The total number of deaths in India because of Tsunami was around 12500. The number 2.87 crore mean, We will have the same number of dead due to Tsunami everyday for the next 2300 days. This number of dead is the best case scenario, and various other factors such as overwhelming of hospitals, resources etc were not taken into account. When healthcare system is overwhelmed, the mortality will increase by manyfold. For example, the case fatality rate of Italy is over 14% and here I leave it to you, to do the math.

So the current corona pandemic is never overrated and please do not underrate  it even if the lockdown is lifted. Yes We have a lot of other things with high mortality rate to worry about, but comparing it with a pandemic is absurd. Its time to stand together, by staying away and hiding your faces behind a mask.

PS: This was an old post and all the calculations has went wrong may be because of the advent of vaccine.

Dr.Praful JK, MBBS
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