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Comment by bongoman37 | Hacker News Reader

2 major festivals, Holi and Kumbh Mela (attended by over 2m people with no social distancing or anything), massive election rallies in multiple states. Poor vaccination drive. A double mutant variant of the virus that seems to be faster spreading. Medical system collapsing, almost everything that could go wrong is going wrong.

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I live in India. Just got my first dose (Covishield -- which is the AstraZeneca derived vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute). The process was really smooth. Just went to the website, (I could have used the AarogySetup COVID app, but preferred not install it,) was given an appointment date. Turned up on the appointment date, stood in line (a longish line -- a 3 hour wait) and got my vaccine. Was made to wait for 30 mins post vaccination to check for anaphylactic shock then then sent home with a couple of fever pills (paracetamol I think). Was contacted two days later by a robocaller to get my feedback and the vaccine certificate was available for download immediately. The process was REALLY smooth. The thing is, its easy to sit in a tiny country like the UK and say the vaccination program is going well, India is vaccinating at rates similar to the rest of the world 3-4 million per day. But India is so huge that, at that rate it will take several years to vaccinate everybody. Harsh lockdowns sadly are even worse for poor people. They literally caused more deaths in the early days due to starvation (from not having the money to buy food) than the virus itself. It is complex to manage a vast and complex country like India. So glib, short comments on social media sites make good reading but are not reflective of the actual effectiveness of the government in power. And I say this as an ardent critic of the current Modi administration.

3 hours is just long-ish? I'd classify that as a very long wait.

Compared to what? That’s shorter than many voting lines in last US election. Shorter than waiting for an unscheduled bus in many countries. I agree it’s longer than I’d like but it’s all perspective.

Compared to everything? I don't think I've waited anywhere for more than an hour in my life. Maybe a ride in an amusement park or in traffic, but that would be it. Certainly not to vote or get a shot.

This is India we're talking about.

Under 45 people are not even eligible to get vaccinated unless you are a health care worker or well connected. The second wave is being largely driven by people in the 25-45 age group. Less than a percent of India's population is vaccinated against Covid-19.

We cannot generalize here. Holi is mostly a north-Indian festival. Kumbh is for all; so there we can say that it affects everyone. But this year very few people traveled.

Also when we say "Medical systems collapsing" then we should be specific. Because there are 700+ districts and there is a different story everywhere.

My father and mother went to the community clinic at a walking distance from my house and there was no queue at all. No wait. Now on 1st of May, it is my and my wife's turn.

- Why single out Holi and Kumbh, where there are large gatherings like political Farmers' protests, Ramadan and other religious gatherings are still going on, while the Kumbh (where entry into the district was with RT-PCR negative certificates) & has been called off at the Prime Minister's request.

- The majority of cases come from Maharshtra: 670388, UP:191457, Karnataka:133543, Chattisgargh:128019, Kerala:93683,Delhi:74941 (for a single city state these numbers are high) - which are non-election states. [Source]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103458/india- novel-coronavirus-covid-19-cases-by-state/

- Poor vaccination drive: Nothing can be father from the truth. India is one of the countries which has superb last mile vaccine delivery capability and connectivity till remote villages. Currently vaccination for 45+ age group is being rolled out successfully (with Covishield and Covaxin both). If anything there was lot of anti-vaxx created by media and politically vested interests which resulted in vaccine hesitancy. Now, the same voices are crying hoarse why we cannot vaccinate 1.3 billion people in a single month?

> Poor vaccination drive: Nothing can be father from the truth. India is one of the countries which has superb last mile vaccine delivery ...

It is true that India has done a fantastic job at producing and distributing vaccines. The problem is that the Indian population is absolutely vast, so the fraction of the population that has been successfully inoculated so far is disappointingly small. There is hope that continued robust progress with vaccination could turn the situation around but that is likely to take several more months.

So after Facebook, Twitter and Indian media, Modi propaganda bots have started bombarding HN as well !

For those of us not close to this topic, how do you assess the veracity of OP’s statements?

Recently created handle just to defend Modi government narrative, Using other religions (read Muslim) as scapegoat in defense. Just look at the pictures of large number of people being gathered in kumbh mela and Modi/BJP rallies and tell us in straight face that these are not super spreader events.

India is a huge and complex country. The virus was not waiting for Kumbh to spread for sure, as daily life in most Indian cities operates in super spreader mode.

From a newspaper report on Mumbai Locals [1]-

"Passengers on suburban local trains in Mumbai have increased since the services were resumed for the general public on February 1. Nearly 3.7 million passengers commute everyday by the local train network on the Central and the Western Railway."

[1] https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/mumbai-news/mumbai-loc...

PS using a throwaway account ( as all Modi apologists do :-) )

Kerala just had a major election [1] .

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Kerala_Legislative_Assemb...

Kumbh mela is going to be probably the single largest super spreader event in the entire world. About 10-12% of people returning from there are testing positive.

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