New Delhi: With the Meghalaya Government declaring all the districts baring East Khasi Hills as green zone since there was no fresh case of COVID 19, the hill state along with entire North East can lift the ongoing crushing lock down after May 3, scientists have suggested.
All the Northeastern states which have been categorised as ‘green and light green’ as least-affected zones can lift the lockdown due to COVID-19, according to researchers at IIT-Mandi.
Along with the Northeastern states Himachal Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Goa can also lift the lock down, the study by the researchers said.
A team of researchers at the institute has developed a short-term forecasting model to analyse which states should be able to lift the lockdown after Sunday, when the second phase of the restrictions are scheduled to end. Their forecasts reveal that Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu will be the most-affected states in the coming days and the lockdown should
not be lifted in these states.
The study used data from January 30 to April 21 to predict how cases will increase for different states over the next 10 days. The results show that the number of cumulative cases in India will rise to 36,335, with 1,099 deaths by this Friday.
As of Wednesday, the number of nationwide cases and deaths stands at around 31,332 and 1,007, respectively. Based on the number of cumulative cases as on April 1, the team also classified different
areas of the country into severity zones.
Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu which are severely affected classified as ‘red zones’. Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Madhya
Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, and West Bengal are deemed to be “intermediately affected” and have been labeled ‘blue zones’.
However, the team’s predictions show that by Friday, Kerala and Karnataka are likely to shift from red to the blue zone. On the other hand, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh will move to the red zone.
The eight red zone states accounted for 26,242 cases, or approximately 84 per cent of India’s total, as of Wednesday.
The states in the green zone are likely to show very less growth in the number of infected cases by May 1, the study said. The researchers validated the results by using their model to make predictions for the number of infected cases and deaths for 12 April, arriving at a figure of 8,064 to 8,936.
