Deutsche Welle (English edition)
India: Global COVID hotspot because of exponential growth
India is seeing more than 300,000 new COVID infections every day ― as with the chessboard formula, exponential growth could become a problem in the medium term, not just for the country itself, but for the world.
India is seeing more than 300,000 new COVID infections every day ― as with the chessboard formula, exponential growth could become a problem in the medium term, not just for the country itself, but for the world.
The number of newly infected people in India is shocking: Currently, the country records more than 360,000 new infections daily ― the highest total worldwide. Almost 18 million people are currently infected there, and more than 200,000 Indian patients have already died from or with COVID-19. The number of unreported cases is probably much higher.
The situation has been exacerbated by the new "double mutant," B.1.617, which combines two mutations in the spike protein. Since the beginning of April, the number of infections have exploded. The curve is rising exponentially.
In the medium term, this exponential growth could become a problem not only for the Indian subcontinent and its neighboring countries, but for the rest of the world, as well.
What does exponential growth mean in relation to the
coronavirus?
To illustrate exponential growth, there is a very appropriate legend from India of timeless validity: A long time ago, the Indian ruler Shihram tyrannized his subjects, and great misery reigned in the country.
In order to make his king aware of the grievances, the wise brahmin Sissa invented the game of chess, with its 64 squares, in which the king is the most important character, but without the support of the pawns and the other pieces, he can do nothing.
The king liked the game and therefore wanted to reward the inventor. The clever Sissa wished that on the first square of a
chessboard a grain of wheat be placed, on the second square double, i.e. two, on the third again double, i.e. four, and so on.
The emperor felt offended in view of the brahmin's supposed modesty, since he was not yet aware of the extent of the wish. It took days for the court arithmeticians to calculate the required amount of wheat grains. In the end, the overseer of the granary informed the king that so much wheat could not be raised in the whole realm.
The clever brahmin would have had to get 18 trillion, 446 quadrillion, 744 trillion, 73 billion, 709 million, 551 thousand, 615 grains of wheat, which would amount to about 730 billion tons of wheat, about a thousand times the world wheat harvest of last year (776.78 million tons).
What does the chessboard formula mean for the pandemic?
Of course, the global coronavirus pandemic is not about grains of wheat, but about people. If we apply the chessboard formula to the pandemic, this would correspond to a contagion rate (reproduction number R) of 2, i.e. each infected person would infect two other people.
India is home to about 1.395 billion people. Nearly 18 million are currently infected with the coronavirus. Fortunately, the reproduction number R for COVID-19 is usually much lower than in the chessboard formula. In India, it is currently 1.32, according to a report by the daily India Today.
The value is highly dependent on people's behavior and social factors: whether they maintain distance and strict hygiene, whether they live in crowded conditions, and under what circumstances they work. In India, for example, the value R was much higher (1.83) during the first wave in March 2020 than it is now.
Still, at the current rate, the number of infected people is expected to double quickly.
More infected, more dead
As the number of infections rises exponentially, the number of deaths is also increasing rapidly. To date, more than 200,000 people in India have died from or with COVID-19. Currently, the mortality rate in India is 1.14%. So if 1.14% of the 18 million people currently infected die, that would be another 205,200 deaths. If the number of infected people doubles, that's an additional 410,400 deaths.
And, as the coronavirus doesn't stop at national borders, the B.1.617 variant and the exponential growth of new infections on the Indian subcontinent are rightly causing concern not only there — but worldwide.