Covid spread under control in Akola, claims research veteran Dr Hatekar

Nagpur: Akola is one of the worst hit districts in Maharashtra with the highest number of Covid-19 deaths (108) in Vidarbha. Since the first case of the district registered on April 8, Akola has 2383 cases till July 24. The daily surge in Covid-19 cases and increasing deaths despite the stringent lockdown, medication and other measures in the district could be disappointing for the residents, but a statistical study by a well-known economist, professor Dr Neeraj Hatekar from Mumbai University, has claimed that the Akola Municipal Corporation is perhaps the first corporation in the state to have got the Covid-19 infections under control.
A few days ago, Dr Hatekar, who has been tracking the Covid-19 pandemic since March, had claimed that the worst is over in Mumbai and added that the situation will be under control. His claim has proved quite right. Now, he has presented some statistical equations based on which he has claimed that the curve of covid-19 cases has bent well and truly in Akola.
In the graph regarding the number of new cases occurring on a daily basis, the curve can be seen as bent in Akola. The growth rate of new cases has also been declining and is very close to nil. Apart from the log of cumulative cases, the number of new cases daily, and the growth rate, Dr Hatekar has studied Effective R – which is a new concept in the Covid-19 statistics.
“We examine the daily effective reproduction number (effective R) in Akola Municipal Corporation. The daily effective R is the number of secondary infections caused by a primary infection on a given day. An effective R greater than 1 implies that the disease spread is increasing, while effective R < 1 implies that the disease spread is contracting,” said Dr Hatekar. The effective R of Akola was more than 4 in the month of May.
“But now, as we can see from the graph, the daily effective R in Akola is so close to the one that it is statistically indistinguishable from 1. This means that the pandemic spread is not expanding,” claimed Dr Hatekar.
Finally, the doubling period (the actual number of days it takes for the cases to go from X to 2X) has been increasing consistently in Akola and it’s now nearly 40 days. The consistent increase denotes consistent progress from a consistent policy.
Akola’s resident deputy collector Sanjay Khadse said that the state government’s health department also shows Akola in the ‘large fall’ category in Covid-19 cases.
“Last week, the Akola Municipal Corpoation’s daily growth rate was 1% while case doubling rate was 137.5. Cases are coming from rural Akola in large numbers these days as we are conducting more than 500 rapid antigen tests on a daily basis. But, as far as the municipal corporation area is concerned, our measures have been quite successful,” said Khadse.
The only cause for concern for Akola is the case fatality rate which is more than 4%. “We have received fresh stock of injections to save severe and critical patients. The CFR will also come down in the next two three weeks,” Khadse added.