Comparative Study of Spread of COVID-19 following Several Interventions spanning 54 days Reflects a Restricted Movement of SARS-CoV-2 in the Population: A Case for Development of Herd Immunity?

COVID-19 is fast spreading around the globe in a highly contagious manner. In this article we have described the effect of prolonged intervention of 54 days on the growth rate of COVID-19 cases. The results showed that after sporadic volatility in percent of COVID-19 cases, the graph showed stability at ≤ 4.6%. The reduced volatility and sustained flattened curve of COVID-19 cases, along with increase in doubling time of rate of COVID-19 cases to 13 days as reported earlier (2), suggested that spread of COVID-19 was gradually slowing down in the population. Concomitant with this, number of discharged/recovered patients from COVID-19 also increased in a steady manner among population. A positive correlation between percent of COVID-19 cases & percent of recovery of patients from COVID-19 existed (R² = 0.246). Though the correlation between the two variables is weak, increased recovery of patients from COVID-19 with controlled spread of COVID-19 would plausibly aid in the development of protective immunity in the population.