Every Covid patient infects 2 others this week in Delhi

New Delhi: Amid the rising Covid-19 cases in Delhi, an analysis by IIT-Madras has revealed that every infected person is infecting two others in the national capital.

Delhi's R-value or reproductive value, which indicates the number of people an infected person can spread the disease to, was recorded at 2.1 this week. A pandemic is considered to end if this value goes below one.

The preliminary analysis by computational modelling was done by IIT-Madras' Department of Mathematics and Centre of Excellence for Computational Mathematics and Data Science headed by Prof Neelesh S Upadhye and Prof S Sundar.

The analysis also found that India's R-value, at present, stands at 1.3. Asked if it can be deduced that this is the beginning of the fourth wave of Covid-19 in Delhi, Dr Jayant Jha, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, IIT-Madras, said it would be too early to declare an onset of another wave.