Spread of COVID-19 in India: A Mathematical Model

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has been the greatest threat to human lives of the entire world since January 2020. In the present article, we discuss a mathematical model regarding the spread of COVID-19 in India. This model is aimed at finding the nature of time dependence of the number of symptomatic patients, officially recorded in the country, during the period from 01 March 2020 to 23 April 2020. The number of persons infected with the coronavirus disease, as declared by the government on a regular basis, is most probably the number of patients who have experienced the symptoms of the disease. The present study is based on a differential equation that has been formed here to find how the number of asymptomatic patients increases with time. The number of symptomatic patients has been estimated from its solution. The nature of its time evolution is found to be quite consistent with the data obtained from government records, for a certain set of parameter values of the model. Using this particular set, we have discussed the impact of imposition of a countrywide lockdown and its withdrawal.