St Petersburg University predicted the peak of COVID incidence in Russia at the end of February

The peak of a new wave of coronavirus may occur on February 22-24, follows from the forecast of a mathematical model compiled at St. Petersburg State University. Viktor Zakharov, professor and head of the Center for Intelligent Logistics at St Petersburg University, spoke about this at a press conference at TASS.

“If the dynamics of the “percentage increase” parameter continues for another week (the one that is now), then the peak in the number of new cases of the disease will shift <...> to about February 22-24,” Zakharov said. Previously, the peak was predicted for February 15, he said.

Zakharov added that the daily incidence threshold at the peak could exceed 200,000 cases, and the number of simultaneously sick people could reach more than 4 million people.

Zakharov is one of the developers of a new mathematical model for calculating the spread of coronavirus - the "Balance CIR Model of the COVID-19 Epidemic Based on Percentage Growth", a description of which scientists published in October 2021. For forecasting, it uses the principle of the dynamic balance of a pandemic based on three indicators: confirmed cases - "confirmed cases", infected - "infected", removed - "excluded", that is, recovered or died. As Zakharov said, there is a relationship between these groups of people that can be captured using algorithms.