Investigating the dynamics of COVID-19 pandemic in India under lockdown

In this paper, we investigate the ongoing dynamics of COVID-19 in India after its emergence in Wuhan, China in December 2019. We discuss the effect of nationwide lockdown implemented in India on March 25, 2020 to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered (SEIR) model is used to forecast active COVID-19 cases in India considering the effect of nationwide lockdown and possible inflation in the active cases after its removal on May 3, 2020. Our model predicts that with the ongoing lockdown, the peak of active infected cases around 43,000 will occur in the mid of May, 2020. We also predict a 7 to 21% increase in the peak value of active infected cases for a variety of hypothetical scenarios reflecting a relative relaxation in the control strategies implemented by the government in the post-lockdown period. For India, it is an important decision to come up with a non-pharmaceutical control strategy such as nationwide lockdown for 40 days to prolong the higher phases of COVID-19 and to avoid severe load on its public health-care system. As the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak remains a global threat, it is a challenge for all the countries to come up with effective public health and administrative strategies to battle against COVID-19 and sustain their economies.