Covid infections in Delhi, Haryana likely to peak in 15-25 days: Cambridge Uni tracker

Delhi and Haryana, the two regions leading Covid infection growth in India, are likely to see infections peak in the next two-three weeks, with daily growth rates having already begun declining, according to the latest projections by an India Covid tracker developed by Cambridge University and others. At the national level, the trajectory of daily growth rate has softened in the last few days, with the current upsurge much more muted than the Omicron wave, giving rise to some optimism, says the analysis. On Friday and Saturday, daily cases in Delhi had breached the 1000-mark.

Apart from Delhi and Haryana, “infection is growing at concerning rates in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal,” according to the researchers at Cambridge’s Centre for Health Leadership & Enterprise, National Institute of Economic and Social Research and India’s Health Systems Transformation Platform who developed the tracker. In another 14 states, infection is growing but at low rates from low case numbers.

Taking the aggregate of the different states and union territories shows that the national level growth rate of cases has not yet peaked though it appears close. “After it begins to decline, the growth rate is likely to remain positive over the coming three to four weeks, during which period daily cases in India can be expected to continue to increase,” says the tracker, shared with ET.


The ‘filtered daily growth’ method used by the tracker filters out day of the week effects and random noise to reveal the underlying signal, say the study authors.