SUTRA Model for Covid Trajectory
Source : Business Standard
GS II : Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

Why in News?

National Covid-19 Supermodel Committee has said that it could not predict the exact nature of the second Covid-19 wave across the country.

About SUTRA Model

• SUTRA (Susceptible, Undetected, Tested (positive), and Removed Approach)
• It first came into public attention when one of its expert members announced in October that India was past its peak.
• After new cases reached 97,000 a day in September, there was a steady decline and the scientists associated with the model development informed that
  • The model showed the COVID burden was expected to be capped at 10.6 million symptomatic infections by early 2021 with less than 50,000 active cases from December.
  • In October, at that time, there were 7.4 million confirmed cases of which about 7,80,000 were active infections.
• SUTRA model chose a data centric approach.
  • The equation that gave out estimates of what the number of future infections might be and the likelihood of when a peak might occur, needed certain constants.

Key Facts

• Committee comprising three scientists working on the SUTRA model
  • It aimed for charting the trajectory of Covid-19
• Model predictions in this instance were incorrect as the nature of the virus has been changing very rapidly.
• It worked based on mathematical model to predict the spread of the virus
  • It is important that a mathematical model can only predict future with some certainty.
  • Also the virus dynamics and its transmissibility don’t change substantially over time.
  • Mathematical models can also provide a mechanism to predicting alternate scenarios corresponding to various policy decisions such as non-pharmaceutical interventions
  • In the case of Covid-19, it is clear that the nature of the virus has been changing very rapidly.
  • In such a context, any prediction for Covid-19 must be continually readjusted, sometimes almost daily

The panel was formed by the central government last year to make projections about the spread of the pandemic to help it make short term and medium term plans and decisions.

Current COVID Cases

• The country on Tuesday reported 3.57 lakh new cases and 3,449 deaths.
• The highest single-day spike was reported on May 1 when the cases crossed 4 lakh to hit a new global record.

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