The north-east could be poised to become the next target of the ongoing second wave of Covid, according to a forecasting tool based on data.
Development Data Lab, a research organisation working on open data, and a team led by University of Chicagos Prof Anup Malani calculates the reproductive rate (Rt) for the Covid-19 outbreak each day. This is a measure of how many people an infected person is likely to infect in a community. The calculations show that the Rt value is greater than 1 for allnortheastern states.
The data shows that there are 15 states and UTs where this value was more than 1 on May 21. At 1.36, the value is the highest for Tripura followed by Meghalaya at 1.31 and Arunachal Pradesh at 1.26. Apart from the eight northeastern states.