6. An insight into the change in the doubling time of COVID-19 in Pakistan

Abstract

Since the outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Pakistan, several studies generated valuable estimations at early stages by tracing the cases with deference to time for the establishment of more operative interventions. Therefore, this study examined the changes in the infection rate for COVID-19 in Pakistan using the data (26^th February to 15^th May 2020) recorded by National Institute for Health. A choropleth map was generated using ArcGIS software for spatial distribution and epidemiological Susceptible, Infected, and Recovered (SIR model) was applied to estimate the epidemic trend of COVID-19. Change in the doubling time of cases and the fatality rate were estimated using the folded formula by classifying the recorded data in nine categories keeping eight days interval. Till 15^th May, 2020, total confirmed cases were 37218 with highest cases in Sindh (14099), deaths in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (284) and least cases and deaths in Azad Jammu Kashmir (105, 1) respectively. COVID-19 cases were elevated from 26^th February to 29^th April except 30^th April to 3^rd May followed by the exponential increase till 15^th May. The cases and fatality rate was increased 3.7 times and 5.4 times from category 2 to 3 and 3 to 4 respectively. The least cases and fatality rate were 1.4 and 0.6 times increased from category 8 to 9. The increase in the number of infections was slow during the initial stage of the outbreak, due to the immediate lockdown in the various region of the country. If containment measures are lifted abruptly, a renaissance of cases is to be expected.

Keywords: COVID-19; Containment measures; Drastic changes; Passengers; Pakistan

http://dx.doi.org/10.19045/bspab.2021.100007