‘Testing’ Times: Fighting COVID-19 Deaths in India

Abstract

We use case fatality rate (CFR) to estimate the severity of Covid-19 deaths in India during the nationwide lockdown period (March 25th to May 31st 2020). Although CFR plummeted during the period, state level data shows high variation. We examine how pre-existing factors such as ability to practice social distancing, health capacity and size of vulnerable population affect CFR across states. We find that although these pre-existing factors matter, they have rather limited impact on CFR. On the other hand testing has a significant impact on CFR. We find that testing is relatively more helpful in reducing CFR for the unfavourably placed group of states- lower capacity to socially distance, lower per capita health expenditure and higher proportion of at-risk population groups. However, it seems to aid states with better medical infrastructure. We also find that testing has a higher impact on reducing CFR for states with more aggressive and higher coverage of testing. Our results show that for an ongoing pandemic like Covid-19, aggressive and higher coverage testing is the way to go.