India Could Be Next Virus Hotspot with an ‘Avalanche’ of Cases
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Highlights of what I think are the biggest risk: The number of tests being performed in India are 20x less than most other countries, though it has ramped up in the past few weeks, there was a free flow of international travel till then.
My fear is that because the virus is asymptomatic, there are a lot of active carriers freely moving around. Most companies in India also find WFH an alien concept, even in tech, so it seems like most people still have to go to work.
I believe that the urban density in India is too high to stop something like this even from a lockdown. Also the lockdown would only help the middle class, there is a large section of urban poor that depend on daily wage that can't stop working. They depend on this money for food and shelter.
Overall, the avalanche is imminent, and I believe that the situation could be dire in the cities.
As tests ramp up the true impact will be seen but I fear that we'll always be behind the curve on this because of the difficulty of mobilizing testing at such scales.
The only way we can avoid large scale impact is if the virus finds it hard to survive in the heat, now that summer is in. Temperatures are rising but there is no consensus on whether that hinders the spread.
Personally, I'm hoping against hope that the heat really does slow this virus down. I don't really have much faith in the policies that the various developed nations have enacted to deal with this particular threat. Not really the fault of the leaders, This situation's just something that has not been seen previously. No experience with it at all. I do think governments are emphasizing the wrong things and not being comprehensive. But so are the people. We're buying toilet paper, but leaving soap on the shelves? But overall, governments at least seem to concede it is a threat at this point.
If the heat won't help us? We're in trouble. If India's heat doesn't slow it down, we're gonna be living with this virus for a good long time. Everyone should be rooting for India and Africa at this point. Cut off the rest of the world from those two places so that we can see if the spread is, at least, impaired a little by the heat or the humidity.
That's optimistic
This is the fault of the majority of our past or present leaders that ignored history and ignored the warnings (recently SARS, MERS, Ebola), and have left everyone unprepared. Not all countries were unprepared.
A civilised, well run country, deals with risks proactively (and ideally develops techniques to decisively act reactively as well).
(1) https://theprint.in/india/governance/despite-coronavirus-lak...
For anyone interested, I did some quick math and it seems like it'd be about two tablespoons of hand sanitizer per person (500k people / 4000 litres).
This illustrates why naive number-formatting code that doesn’t take locale into account is wrong. The same number is written 20,000,000 in the US, 20.000.000 in most of continental Europe, and 2,00,00,000 in India.
I formerly worked on a now-defunct Indian e-commerce site, and many of my fellow developers (and me) were Westerners with little exposure to Indian culture. It was relatively common for new employees to file a “bug” pointing out that the site was formatting large numbers “wrong”, not realizing that it was correct for India.
Google states that for: "(4000 litres / 500000) in tablespoons": the result is "0.541024363 US tablespoons"
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati...
It is very hard to believe that there is no local transmission, and very easy to believe that any covid-19 news there is suppressed.
Today's numbers are 114 total. They have started testing people with symptoms who had immediate contact with the infected..
Source: https://www.zeit.de/amp/news/2020-03/18/corona-test-erforder...
Even within the U.S., the map very clearly highlights frequently-travelled urban centers (California and New York first, followed by Washington/Oregon, then Texas, Florida, etc.). It looks like the map of the Democrat/Republican leaning for different states.
Quoting the World Health Organization's representative to India (Henk Bekedam):
"“The commitment from the Indian government and the Prime Minister’s Office has been enormous, very impressive. It is one of the reasons why India is still doing quite well. I am very impressed that everyone has been mobilised,” Henk Bekedam, WHO’s representative to India, was quoted as saying by news agency ANI" [1]
We have had cases of Japanese Encephalitis blowing up just a few years ago in Uttar Pradesh. The Government tackled that by immunizing millions of children in the State [2] and [3]. Can India handle this epidemic? Absolutely yes. From all evidence available publicly India is handling it way better than most countries are as of now.
[1]: https://www.freepressjournal.in/india/very-impressed-with-in...
[2]: https://www.financialexpress.com/india-news/big-shout-out-to...
[3]: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/encephalitis-in-uttar...
What kind of loose argument is this? It is well known that India has as much as 6 times lesser number of hospital beds per capita than Italy, which is in serious trouble.
> Coronavirus is not something that can go undetected for a long time (incubation period is 5 days from what I have read).
5 to 14 days, and some are asymptomatic which worsens the situation even further. 5 days is still a high enough number. Besides, it's R0 one must pay attention to, which is absurdly high at ~2.5.
> India is a democracy and not an authoritarian regime like China. You can't hide something as serious as this for long.
What? Democracy has nothing to do with hiding information. Case in point: Aftermath of repealing Article 370, or lack of transparency on the Pulwama attack, or conscripted proof of current PM's educational qualifications. The list goes on.
> If you want to believe propaganda that is a different story altogether.
Uh huh. How about we stop passing non-expert opinions as facts starting with this thread right here?
> We have had cases of Japanese Encephalitis blowing up just a few years ago in Uttar Pradesh.
Non sequitur, my friend. The diseases are different. The agent is different. This whole thing is different to anything the world has seen since the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic.
> Can India handle this epidemic? Absolutely yes.
That's your opinion. Speaking of which, the doctors on the frontlines don't seem to be as optimistic as you are: https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/fk649f/hi_im_dr_rosh...
Because no one takes a pandemic into account while building hospitals. The idea is not about how many hospital beds exist per capita. It is about ability to mobilize in case a requirement of this sort arises. Did China not build makeshift hospitals in record time when the number of beds were low? If the need arises it will be done so in India as well. India has shown that it is serious in the way it responded to rescuing Citizens stuck abroad in infected areas. That gives me confidence that the Government can be tackle it if situation arises. Until then we are still in Stage 2 of the pandemic. We don't need to worry about expanding capacity at least for now. Just having a high number of hospital beds per capita is a waste of energy, resources and money unless there is a real requirement for it. If we hit Stage 3 then yes we can expand the numbers proportional to what is required. If you truly believe that India is incapable of doing that then you grossly underestimate India my friend. We have constructed highways[1], tunnels[2], 10 floor buildings[3] and stadiums[4] in record time. Building makeshift hospitals is not out of reach.
[1]: https://www.livemint.com/Industry/9lKbWFYnxLTf1QSIa6z18M/Nat...
[2]: https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2019/07/08/longest-electri...
[3]: https://www.rediff.com/business/report/indias-fastest-constr...
[4]: https://www.business-standard.com/article/sports/motera-stad...
> What? Democracy has nothing to do with hiding information. Case in point: Aftermath of repealing Article 370, or lack of transparency on the Pulwama attack, or conscripted proof of current PM's educational qualifications. The list goes on.
Democracy has everything to do with dissemination of information. All of the issues you mentioned have been discussed thread-bare in the media and in the courts. Try doing the same in China and then get back here (if you survive the authoritarian regime that is). Heck in China all whistleblowers on Coronavirus have but disappeared. The doctor who first exposed Coronavirus in China died. The numbers coming out of China for 2 months was pretty much the same with many doubting if those numbers were fudged. Let us be a bit realistic shall we?
> Uh huh. How about we stop passing non-expert opinions as facts starting with this thread right here?
Yes I am a non-expert. Whatever I put out are not my opinions but opinions of WHO representatives when it comes to India's handling of Coronavirus and UNICEF that lauded India for how it tackled Japanese Encephalitis. If you believe these are not facts then you can question the representatives of these International bodies. If at all, I should turn around and ask you to stop passing around non-expert opinions as absolute truth when all you are doing is nothing but indulge in fear-mongering.
> Non sequitur, my friend. The diseases are different. The agent is different. This whole thing is different to anything the world has seen since the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic.
I was talking about the ability to handle the situation as opposed to the disease itself. You are unable to comprehend what I wrote and in what context. It shows in your emotional response. As far as pandemics are concerned India has already been through one: The 2016 H1N1 Influenza pandemic in India (42,592 swine flu cases were confirmed, of which resulted in 2,992 deaths). We have taken experience from that already.
> That's your opinion. Speaking of which, the doctors on the frontline of this don't seem to be as optimistic as you are: https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/fk649f/hi_im_dr_rosh....
Sorry to say but I give more importance to the statements of the WHO representative than a doctor who conducted an AMA on Reddit. The reason being that mobilization of resources happens from the Center. It all depends on how proactive the Government is in such situations. A doctor can give his opinions on current circumstances that he sees around him but cannot foresee policy measures taken by the Government during a health emergency like this which will have a pan-India impact. If the WHO representative is confident of the direction the Country is headed in tackling the emergency then I have faith in his statements. Beyond that it is all speculations and fear mongering at this point.
I found this reference¹ on that doctor's AMA: "Asked about why India is not testing more, top ICMR official comes up with odd response: more tests may throw up more positive cases, which we may not be able to.. manage?"
This got me curious enough to include monitoring of India's situation in my group of interests. Only the time will tell how it will turn out.
¹ https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/fk649f/hi_im_dr_rosh...
THIS IS WRONG TRANSLATION. Please ask a Hindi speaking person and he can verify my translation. What the ICMR official said was this:
"When the population is so high (1.3 billion+) you can't test everyone. I have told people to get tested but some people are so careless that when they do get the report of being tested positive they may not self-quarantine themselves. Out of fear they may not tell others around them. They hid their report. How will I be able to help such people because I have no idea about individual reports (when there are so many of them). The other issue is how do I confirm that the person is giving his personal details correctly? He can get himself tested with a wrong name and then it becomes difficult to follow up. It is not an easy solution to recommend getting every single person tested"
Please before spreading falsehood and panic get it translated from the right person at the very least. DON'T FEAR MONGER. NDTV is a horrible source for gathering information. They twist reality and do not show facts as is. The ICMR official was giving this answer in a totally different context.
See the first comment to the tweet: https://twitter.com/GiriGiriek/status/1239848388767580163
"I don't think testing 1.4 billion is practical. That's an exercise in futility, wasting effort and resources when isolating those with symptoms and their after-care assumes priority. Misleading, panic spreading tweet."
India is a vast country. Not everyone is fluent in all languages. Many just believe the lies spread by Mainstream Media. We, being part of the tech community, should exercise extreme caution when quoting things out of context and mistranslating something that was never said. This doesn't help the cause. I will definitely get this nonsensical tweet reported to the News Broadcasting Standards Authority of India for blatantly misreporting to induce fear and panic. Thanks for bringing this news clipping to my attention.
Yes, it is... Most people already think they have some sort of "Indian immunity" against SARS-CoV-2.
> I am moderator for super large fb groups and over dozens of whataspp groups and I find them to be a boon in the moments of crisis.
Not a boon! Not calling people out on phony, unproven remidies not only stands to aggravate the situation but incentivizes folks with an agenda to take control of the narrative.
What do they say about feeding fire with fuel? Yeah, it is absolutely a problem.
If someone tests positive or feels ill, and thinks they can solve the problem with homeopathy or Ayurveda, that could boost transmission and mortality rates.
Btw, I really liked reading this post: https://blog.ramachandr.in/2018/06/19/the-absent-indian/
Prepare to be horrified: https://jimhumble.co/blog/a-word-on-coronavirus
It is clear that humidity has an influence, and temperature may have an influence.
I am hopeful that the tropical nations of the world will be spared the worst of this particular disease, but only time will tell.
MERS, which is related to COVID, is endemic in the Middle East, doesn't seem to be seasonal.
People shouldn't make preparations based on the idea that this will go away in the summer.
And not just OTC, but handed out for free and in large quantities at govt hospitals.
I am eager to see this data as well.
that's pretty darn encouraging, considering most places haven't gotten serious until recently.
India is after all the generics manufacturing capital of the world. We can churn this stuff out by the billions.
Fingers crossed.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/agra/techie-had-not...
In addition India has a huge population with hypertension, who are on ACE inhibitors or ARBs, and diabetes.
Wow. Just wow. What do you have to be thinking to come to the conclusion that "screw everybody, we'll just spread the illness" is your decision? At some point, isn't it attempted murder?
Also, shame on that site for hijacking the copy functionality.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/don-t-fuck-wi...
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dont-fuck-with-pas...
Give the guy the benefit of the doubt: then the question becomes “why would a sensible person act that way towards authority?”... Perhaps someone local could answer whether he was acting sensibly, or whether most local people would act the same way?