Dynamics of COVID-19 outbreak & lockdown effectiveness in India

Abstract

On 11 March 2020, WHO declared Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) outbreak as a pandemic and reiterated the call for countries to take immediate actions and scale up response to treat, detect and reduce transmission to save people’s lives. As a result, across globe, nations have taken steps to implement social distancing to reduce the transmission rates. On 24 March 2020, India implemented a 21-day nationwide lockdown. As on 2 April 2020, according to the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, India, a total of 2069 COVID-19 cases, have been reported in 29 states/union territories. These include 155 who have been cured/discharged, 1 who has migrated and 53 deaths. Hospital isolation of all confirmed cases, tracing and home quarantine of the contacts is ongoing. This study aims at laying down a theoretical base by way of developing a mathematic model of the pandemic as well as analyzing the effectiveness of the current lockdown and recommendations for an effective containment.