KATHMANDU: Indian Institute of Science’s (IISc) has projected that the number of Covid-19 infection cases could reach as many as to 60 million by the end of March, 2021 in a worst case scenario.

In a better case scenario for the country, India’s total coronavirus cases could be as low as 3.74 million at the end of March 2021.

The IISc model “is a paradigm shift in mathematical modeling of infectious diseases” and is based on the country’s Covid-19 data and trends observed between Mar 23 and June 18 this year “to tune the parameters of the data-driven model”.

However, the projections are likely to differ after taking into account the current Covid-19 situation in the country.

The model laid great emphasis on the initiation of “one or two-day lockdown per week” to cut the rate of new infections.

It also noted the steady improvement in India’s Covid-19 recovery rate and emphasized the importance of appropriate medical care and timely quarantine.

“Among all measures, contact tracing, quarantine and social distancing are key to contain the spread in the absence of vaccine,” it stated.

India’s Covid-19 tally now is close to the 1-million mark with over 24,000 deaths and the number of recovered patients touching 600,000.

Globally, the virus has infected 13 million people while over 500,000 people have succumbed to death and over 8 million patients have recovered globally

(With inputs from Agencies)