Analysis of the second wave of COVID-19 in India based on SEIR model

Abstract

India was under a grave threat from the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic particularly in the beginning of May 2021. The situation appeared rather gloomy as the number of infected individuals/active cases had increased alarmingly during the months of May and June 2021 compared to the first wave peak. Indian government/state governments have been implementing various control measures such as lockdowns, setting up new hospitals, and putting travel restrictions at various stages to lighten the virus spread from the initial outbreak of the pandemic. Recently, we have studied the susceptible-exposed-infectious-removed (SEIR) dynamic modeling of the epidemic evolution of COVID-19 in India with the help of appropriate parameters quantifying the various governmental actions and the intensity of individual reactions. Our analysis had predicted the scenario of the first wave quite well. In this present article, we extend our analysis to estimate and analyze the number of infected individuals during the second wave of COVID-19 in India with the help of the above SEIR model. Our findings show that the people’s individual effort along with governmental actions such as implementations of curfews and accelerated vaccine strategy are the most important factors to control the pandemic in the present situation and in the future.