1. Reassessing Reported Deaths and Estimated Infection Attack Rate during the First 6 Months of the COVID-19 Epidemic, Delhi, India.
- Author
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Pons-Salort M, John J, Watson OJ, Brazeau NF, Verity R, Kang G, and Grassly NC
- Subjects
- Humans, Incidence, India epidemiology, SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, Epidemics
- Abstract
India reported >10 million coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases and 149,000 deaths in 2020. To reassess reported deaths and estimate incidence rates during the first 6 months of the epidemic, we used a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 transmission model fit to data from 3 serosurveys in Delhi and time-series documentation of reported deaths. We estimated 48.7% (95% credible interval 22.1%-76.8%) cumulative infection in the population through the end of September 2020. Using an age-adjusted overall infection fatality ratio based on age-specific estimates from mostly high-income countries, we estimated that just 15.0% (95% credible interval 9.3%-34.0%) of COVID-19 deaths had been reported, indicating either substantial underreporting or lower age-specific infection-fatality ratios in India than in high-income countries. Despite the estimated high attack rate, additional epidemic waves occurred in late 2020 and April-May 2021. Future dynamics will depend on the duration of natural and vaccine-induced immunity and their effectiveness against new variants.
- Published
- 2022
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