The second wave of COVID-19 cases is putting India’s healthcare infrastructure to test. To understand more about the magnitude of impact, here is a metric that I normally use: the net change in COVID-19 active cases on a given day.
In a nutshell, the net change in active cases can be broadly defined as:
Net_Change(activeCases) = New confirmed cases - New recovered cases - New Deaths
This metric will help us understand how much additional pressure we put on the healthcare infrastructure. The number would give us an insight into the impact on
- Additional people that require home quarantine/isolation
- Additional medication needs (like Remdesivir)
- Additional medical equipment needs (like Oxygen)
- Additional beds required in hospitals
- Additional healthcare professional help – either in-person or online consultations
Looking at the trends in net change in active cases in India, the impact on healthcare system is very evident since mid-March 2021. Unless the metric nears zero or becomes negative, the country’s healthcare system continues to be under pressure.
Selective, localized regulations seem to have a good impact on this metric for the last 3-4 days. We need to see if the trend continues for a while and helps ease out pressure on healthcare system.
Data Sources:
The data presented in this graphic primarily comes from Government of India sources and aggregated at a public data source.
- Government of India – COVID-19 stats & other resources – https://www.mygov.in/covid-19
- COVID-19 Data Repository by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University – https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19
- Lacet Article Credit – https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30120-1/fulltext