IIT Kanpur has made no predictions on 4th Covid-19 wave: Govt

Replying to a question on whether IIT Kanpur has predicted the fourth wave of Covid-19, the Minister clarified that the institution has not made any such predictions.

New Delhi: The Union Government is closely following the Covid-19 trajectory globally in view of the emerging variants of the virus, Minister of State (MoS) Health and Family Welfare, Dr Bharati Pravin Pawar said in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

"Given the emergence of variants of COVID-19 virus with variable transmissibility and other public health implications, Union Ministry of Health is closely following COVID-19 trajectory globally and in the country along with various expert committees," Pawar said in a written reply.

Replying to a question on whether IIT Kanpur has predicted the fourth wave of Covid-19, the Minister clarified that the institution has not made any such predictions. She further stated that it was an independent study done by a team of researchers from their Department of Mathematics and Statistics who have prepared a mathematical model and submitted the same to a preprint server for the experts to comment. The Minister said that the study was not peer-reviewed.

Pawar argued that such studies often fail to provide accurate results when it comes to a large and diverse population due to their small sample size. "Often these studies involve, taking a relatively small actual sample and extrapolate the result to the entire population. While this may achieve near accurate results for a small homogenous country/region, such techniques have failed repeatedly to give reliable results for a large, diverse population," she stated.

The MoS further stated that the network of Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) of laboratories is undertaking whole-genome sequencing of samples for timely detection of mutant variants of the virus.