Paper detail

Epidemic parameters for COVID-19 in several regions of India

Bayesian analysis of publicly available time series of cases and fatalities in different geographical regions of India during April 2020 is reported. It is found that the initial apparent rapid growthin infections could be partly due to confounding factors such as initial rapid ramp-up of disease surveillance. A brief discussion is given of the fallacies which arise if this possibility is neglected. The growth after April 10 is consistent with a time independent but region dependent exponential. From this, R0 is extracted using both known cases and fatalities. The two estimates are seen to agree in many cases; for these CFR is reported. It is seen that CFR and R0 increase together. Some public health implications of this observation are discussed, including a target doubling interval if medical facilities are to remain adequate.