COVID-19 Active case trends in India

04 May

The second wave of COVID-19 cases is putting India’s healthcare infrastructure to test. To understand more about the magnitude of impact, here is a metric that I normally use: the net change in COVID-19 active cases on a given day.

In a nutshell, the net change in active cases can be broadly defined as:

Net_Change(activeCases) = New confirmed cases - New recovered cases - New Deaths

This metric will help us understand how much additional pressure we put on the healthcare infrastructure. The number would give us an insight into the impact on

  • Additional people that require home quarantine/isolation
  • Additional medication needs (like Remdesivir)
  • Additional medical equipment needs (like Oxygen)
  • Additional beds required in hospitals
  • Additional healthcare professional help – either in-person or online consultations

Looking at the trends in net change in active cases in India, the impact on healthcare system is very evident since mid-March 2021. Unless the metric nears zero or becomes negative, the country’s healthcare system continues to be under pressure.

Selective, localized regulations seem to have a good impact on this metric for the last 3-4 days. We need to see if the trend continues for a while and helps ease out pressure on healthcare system.

Data Sources:

The data presented in this graphic primarily comes from Government of India sources and aggregated at a public data source.