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Comment by sn41 | Hacker News Reader

That was due to the lessons from SARS-Cov1 in 2003. Asian countries that did not suffer from SARS-Cov1 did very badly with covid-19. e.g. India. In India the misinformation was uniquely Indian - first they said that vegetarians will not get Covid, it came from bushmeat (ignoring the fact that human-to-human transmission was through cough droplets), then they said that Yoga fights Covid, then they blamed it on a minority gathering (ignoring the fact that people were streaming in unchecked through international airports through all of January and February 2020).

One of the lessons taught in "crisis management", it seems, is to downplay an emergency so that the people do not panic. Death due to ignorance is much preferable?

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Looking at WorldOMeters covid data shows India ranks 105th in deaths per million(lower ranking is worse). India has one wave peaking in September and now relatively low cases.

Let's not get into the testing data debate here. To say that a country with 0.53 hospital beds per 1000 persons can successfully handle any medical emergency is unrealistic[1]. India is also highly populated, so the sheer number of people without access to healthcare is enormous. Access to testing is non-uniform. Very strangely, only places with relatively better access to healthcare seem to have more cases - Delhi, Bombay, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, the state of Kerala, etc.

Kind of like how 80 percent of dinosaurs are from the US and Europe - you only find things if you look. Ignorance is bliss.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_hospital_...

> Let's not get into the testing data debate here.

Let's not spread misinformation either. India did enough testing. India's positivity rate was almost always below 10%. Now it's even less than 1%. India has made testing fast, cheap, and easy to access.

Also, it doesn't matter if india has fewer hospital beds, if those beds are empty. Hospitals beds are empty, and our morgues aren't overflowing (like how milan or nyc in March did). It is a free country with open media. Nobody is suppressing covid cases.

There are many reasons it could happen like this. Cross immunity. Younger demographics. Smaller groups (most indians live in rural villages). Diet. Weather. Etc.

It's not strange that delhi and bangalore have more cases. They are also denser cities with more people. It's just like how nyc and Los Angeles have more cases than say indianapolis or santa Cruz.

India did way better than a lot of other countries, Lot of people expected it to do way worse.

>>>> first they said that vegetarians will not get Covid, it came from bushmeat (ignoring the fact that human-to-human transmission was through cough droplets)

This was at the point when WHO was saying there was no Human to Human transfmission.

>>> then they blamed it on a minority gathering

Well obviously since even during lockdown, they conducted that gathering which had people coming from almost all states, then after the gathering went back to their home states. This was during the height of lockdown. The problem was that people though t rules did not apply to them. There was even a riot in Bangalore by these people when lockdown was being imposed.

India just doesn't have the giant 70+ yo vulnerable male population that western countries have. If they did, the numbers would be horrifying. But since they have a young population, herd immunity was reached. (Serology tests show over 50% of india had covid, and the case stats show a classic epidemical curve)

Same goes for Russia btw, theres no 50+ males for covid to kill as they die to alcohol abuse. So they peaked at "only" 600 deaths / day.

India did badly for the same reason the US and Brazil did so badly. Authoritarian, right wing, populist governments that relied on misinformation and half truths, had no plan and basically shifted blame and tried to save face. India actually probably did the best out of all three considering Modi at least isn’t a science denialist.

True, the last part did surprise me. He went against the base of his party, and espoused science.

My long term observation of humanity is most people try to solve every problem with whatever strategy that's been working for them. Vs anything practical and appropriate.

Authoritarian, right wing, populist governments tried bullshitting and gaslighting to combat the virus.

Me I'm an introverted hermit. Been working well so far.

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