In a first, the R-value for the Covid-19 virus in Delhi which is an indicator of how quickly the infection is spreading, crossed over 2 thereby raising an alarm across the medical fraternity and researchers in India.
The preliminary analysis conducted by IIT-Madras’ Department of Mathematics and Centre of Excellence for Computational Mathematics and Data Science headed by Prof Neelesh S Upadhye and Prof S Sundar found that
Delhi’s R-value for this week stood at 2.1, implying that every infected person is infecting two others in the national capital. Meanwhile, India’s R-value, at present, stood at 1.3.
What is R-Value?
The ‘R’ or reproductive value indicates the number of people an infected person can pass on the disease to, and a pandemic is considered to end globally if this value goes below one.
The country’s R-value has been steadily increasing over the last few weeks. It reportedly stood at 1.07 for the week between April 12-18 while in the preceding April 5-11 week, it was 0.93. The last time the R-value was recorded above 1 was in the week between January 16-22, when the value was 1.28, PTI reported.
The estimated R-value in the week ending April 18 was 2.12 for Delhi, 2.12 for Uttar Pradesh, 1.04 for Karnataka, 1.70 for Haryana, 1.13 for Mumbai, 1.18 for Chennai, and 1.04 for Bengaluru.
What does a high R-Value indicate?
The national capital’s R-value for this week stood at 2.1, implying that every infected person is infecting two others in the national capital, researchers at IIT Madras stated.
However, when asked about the possibility of the onset of the fourth wave of Covid, Dr Jayant Jha, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, IIT-Madras said it is too early to declare an onset of another wave.
“We can only say right now that every person is affecting two others….but we need to wait a bit to declare onset…we don’t know about the immunity status and whether the people who got affected during the third wave in January are getting affected or not again,” he told Press Trust of India.
When asked about the status in other metro cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai, Jha said that the number of cases is too low to ascertain a trend.
Earlier, a researcher from Chennai’s Institute of Mathematical Sciences namely Sitabhra Sinha had said it can go either way when asked about the implications of the increase in R-value for Covid trajectory.
He had said that in the future whether this leads to another huge increase in cases will depend on prompt actions taken by the public at large which seems to have stopped adopting basic precautions like wearing masks and avoiding crowds, he added.
Stating that he also stressed the need for everyone to wear masks, practice basic hygiene (like washing hands and avoiding touching one’s face, and eyes), physical distancing as much as possible, etc.
This comes at a time when Delhi is witnessing an uptick in cases of coronavirus. The city logged 1,094 fresh Covid cases with a positivity rate of 4.82 percent on Saturday. The Omicron sub-lineage BA.2.12 has been detected in a majority of the samples sequenced from Delhi in the first fortnight of April and it is being conjectured as the major reason behind the recent surge in Covid-19 cases in the city.
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