Expect mid-Nov peak, dearth of beds, ventilators: ICMR study

At current levels, pandemic to cost India 6.2 pc of its GDP

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 14

An ICMR taskforce on Covid research has projected mid-November disease peak in India while warning states to meet anticipated shortfalls in health systems.

The Operational Research Group of the ICMR headed by medical specialist NK Arora however concluded that the eight-week lockdown and the health measures that were taken during the period would help India achieve 70 per cent reduction in Covid cases at the peak and 27 per cent reduction in the cumulative load.

The researchers who evaluated the effectiveness of the lockdown also state in the findings that this single measure delayed the peak in India by 34 to 76 days and overall cases by 69 to 97 per cent. The estimations are based on a month-old data and will soon be published.

At current levels, the researchers project the pandemic to cost India 6.2 per cent of its GDP.

The most important finding in the research pertains to the availability of health infrastructure to manage the peak when it arrives in a staggered manner by mid- November. The country could then fall short of ventilators for the next 3.9 months, isolation beds for 5.4 months and ICU beds for 4.6 months.

“But given the fact that the epidemic would not happen uniformly across the country and would happen in clusters, the effects of the projected lack of infrastructure would not be as debilitating as these could have been otherwise. Already the lockdown and the accompanying public health measures have helped boost the health infrastructure by delaying the peak by months,” one of the researchers said today.