Mathematical models on severity of Covid-19 in India carried strong bias, failed: IJMR editorial

NEW DELHI: Various mathematical models on the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic in India carried a “strong element of bias and used assumptions” to predict cases and deaths, an editorial published in ICMR‘s Indian Journal of Medical Research has said.

It said it “is a huge risk” to solely rely on these models for policy decisions on advance planning since predicting infectious diseases for a new pathogen is an “extremely perilous proposition” and hence it should be avoided.

The editorial ‘Lessons learnt during the first 100 days of Covid-19 pandemic in India’ is penned by Rajesh Bhatia, former director of Communicable Diseases for WHO’s South-East Asia Regional Office, and Priya Abraham, director of ICMR-National Institute of Virology.

Several mathematical models projected the severity of pandemic in terms of cases and deaths and at least in the context of India, no