Evaluating COVID-19 Lockdown Policies For India: A Preliminary Modeling Assessment for Individual States

Abstract

Background: On March 24, India ordered a 3-week nationwide lockdown in an effort to control the spread of COVID-19. While the lockdown has been effective, our model suggests that completely ending the lockdown after three weeks could have considerable adverse public health ramifications. We extend our individual-level model for COVID-19 transmission to study the disease dynamics in India at the state level for Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh to estimate the effect of further lockdown policies in each region. Specifically, we test policies which alternate between total lockdown and simple physical distancing to find "middle ground" policies that can provide social and economic relief as well as salutary population-level health effects.

Methods: We use an agent-based SEIR model that uses population-specific age distribution, household structure, contact patterns, and comorbidity rates to perform tailored simulations for each region. The model is first calibrated to each region using publicly available COVID-19 death data, then implemented to simulate a range of policies. We also compute the basic reproduction number R0 and case documentation rate for both regions.

Results: After the initial lockdown, our simulations demonstrate that even policies that enforce physical distancing while otherwise returning to normal activity could lead to widespread outbreaks in both states. However, "middle ground" policies that alternate weekly between total lockdown and physical distancing may lead to much lower rates of infection while simultaneously permitting some return to normalcy.

Keywords: COVID-19, India, modeling, agent-based model, physical distancing, lockdown