How many COVID cases in India by June end?

With 4th lockdown coming to an end on May 31st, the national situation does not seem to be improving much. India currently has 1.3 lakh cases, we added 40000 cases in the last one week. We are losing about 140 people a day at the moment while recovering about 2800 people a day indicating a death to recovery rate of 5%. .

While it is difficult to predict how many cases are likely to occur, Karnataka is illustrative of the problems we may have after May 31st. Karnataka has opened up quite extensively over the last one week. And in this period its total cases increased by nearly 80% in just one week.

We use data from last 2 months at National level to arrive at a preliminary ball park estimate

First, let us look at Number of Cases Added, Fortnightly

April 1st to April 15th: 716 per day

April 16th to April 30th: 1500 per day

May 1st to May 15th: 3399 per day

May 16th to May 23rd: 5696 per day

If the current pace continues, we will end up with an average of 6000 per day between May 16th and May 30th. That would be an increase of 75% over May 1st to May 15th

If India continues at that pace, India will add 4.3 lakh cases in the next one month. But that is unlikely.

Let us consider another scenario, Case rate increase over this period

April 15th vs March 31: 7.6 times

April 30th vs April 15th: 2.8 times

May 15th to May 1st: 2.5 times

May 30th vs May 15th: 2 times

Assuming the same rate of decline as May, June will first fall from 2 to 1.7 and then 1.7 to 1.2. That will mean 1.8 lakh cases in the next one month.

All of this assume some levels of lockdown and social distancing. If the lockdown enforcement comes down to the level of Karnataka, it is difficult to predict how many cases we will have by the end of the month.

Given the above two scenarios and the Karnataka experience, India is most likely to continue with lockdown 5 in the Red Zones.