Will the Minister of Health and Family Welfare be pleased to state:
(a) the number of modelling studies/projects commissioned by the Government so far on
COVID-19 prediction; and
(b) the success achieved by the projects in accurately making the predictions?
ANSWER.
THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTERY OF HEALTH AND
FAMILY WELFARE
(DR. BHARATI PRAVIN PAWAR)
(a) and (b)
Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), a statutory body under the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India has approved funding for projects under MATRICS scheme for studying mathematical modelling and computational aspects to tackle the COVID 19 pandemic.
Union Ministry of Health is also keeping constant track of national and international COVID-19 projection trends made by various institutions, universities, and independent groups through their modeling studies to aid public health actions at the field level.
COVID-19 is a relatively new infectious viral disease being faced by all countries in the world for which evidence is still evolving. Like any infectious disease the COVID-19 cases at the field level are influenced by a number of factors like efficacy of containment efforts in the field, rural-urban divide, immunity after natural infections and immunization, impact of variant mutants, risk of re-infections etc.