Abstract:
India has been the latest global epicenter for COVID-19, a novel coronavirus disease that
emerged in China in late 2019.We present a base mathematical model for the transmission
dynamics of COVID-19 in India and its neighbor, Pakistan. The base model was rigorously
analyzed and parameterized using cumulative COVID-19 mortality data from each of the
two countries. The model was used to assess the population-level impact of the control
and mitigation strategies implemented in the two countries (notably non-pharmaceutical
interventions). Numerical simulations of the basic model indicate that, based on the current
baseline levels of the control and mitigation strategies implemented, the pandemic
trajectory in India is on a downward trend. This downward trend will be reversed, and
India will be recording mild outbreaks, if the control and mitigation strategies are relaxed
from their current levels. By early September 2021, our simulations suggest that India
could record up to 460,000 cumulative deaths under baseline levels of the implemented
control strategies, while Pakistan (where the pandemic is comparatively milder) could see
over 24,000 cumulative deaths at current mitigation levels. The basic model was extended
to assess the impact of back-and-forth mobility between the two countries. Simulations of
the resulting metapopulation model show that the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic in
Pakistan increases with increasing values of the average time residents of India spend in
Pakistan, with daily mortality in Pakistan peaking in mid-August to mid-September of
2021. Under the respective baseline control scenarios, our simulations show that the backand-
forth mobility between India and Pakistan could delay the time-to-elimination of the
COVID-19 pandemic in India and Pakistan to November 2022 and July 2022, respectively.
