I hope the reason is that Indians are intrinsically resistant to SARS-CoV-2, that would be a big relief.
There's some co-relation between receiving the BCG vaccine and symptom severity, which could explain some of what we are seeing.
India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates
101–110 of 381 posts
Re: India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates
#102Ah yet another cant-be-true-they're-hiding-something article? Surely they can't be doing better than developed countries? FWIW, India did implement a stronger lockdown much earlier on in the curve than other countries. State and federal authorities went lock-step in their actions, and with consistent messaging. Police enforced the lockdown at times even brutally, getting the point across to the general public. Indian…
I live in Kazakhstan and so far out country seems to be doing a right thing. We're heavily quarantined and I don't think that states are hiding anything. Economy implications of such a lockdown probably will be harsh, but that's a different thing. There was ill person in the building I'm living in and now entire building section just closed, nobody can go out and regular desinfections are performed (I don't think that they make any sense, but whatever).
So I'm absolutely sure that Kazakhstan is doing better than many European countries and for sure better than US. May be our government is not the most democratic one out there, but they care about citizens and their tight grip over country allows them to make an unpopular but effective decisions.
Some western people just think that they are strictly superior everywhere to the developing countries. That might be true in a lot of areas, but it's not an universal truth.
Re: India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
When New York went in to lockdown, it had ~7000 cases (20th March) [1] When UK went in to lockdown, it had 6700 cases. (23rd March) [2] When India went in to lockdown, it had 657 cases. (25th March) [2] [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/20/politics/new-york-workfor... [2] https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Comparing cases is pretty meaningless if you don't also compare test rates.
This extremely simple point is missed by almost everyone, to the point where I think it's malicious (hey US media).
Re: India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates
#104Maybe the warmer more humid weather in India combined with the measures they took against the virus delayed the spread enough that the number of deaths are lower.
Re: India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm guessing you live in Hyderabad. Clearly your street is not a hotspot, and you really shouldn't be extrapolating from it to the rest of India. As far as people having it while being asymptomatic, that is unfalsifiable until they are tested.
Don't think I mentioned anything to generalize. Just what I observed in my city (Chennai) in my street. What I was implying is that perhaps things did go okay in terms of slowing the spread in India: of course, there's probably more spread than is being reported, but that seems par for course everywhere. I'm only worried that the lockdown is going to significantly affect the poorer communities worse at the expense of…
> I'm only worried that the lockdown is going to significantly affect the poorer communities worse at the expense of richer folks.
Sorry, what? The lockdown isn't about the rich or the poor. It is mostly about containing a deadly disease we don't fully understand yet. It is for the medics but also mostly to keep the social fabric intact. No one wants this to descent into chaos and madness without controls in-place. A deliberated and measured response is warranted despite an unprecedented loss of livelihood and absence of any real infrastructure to handle the fallout, especially to support the 500m people who live on daily-wages. Unless an effective prophylactic or a therapeutic treatment is discovered, lifting the lockdown can be disastrous for a country as dense as India and for incubation periods as long as they are for a rabidly contagious SARS-CoV-2.
Hopefully, the current situation improves in a month (most cities and states could possibly reopen in the coming weeks), but I wish the conversation around UBI (food subsidies including) and universal healthcare picks up steam rather than the pathetic pettiness around religious faultlines that seems to be in focus, all the time, aided by the ruling party's inclination to make a mockery out of democracy and India's minorities. I digress.
Re: India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates
#106Ah yet another cant-be-true-they're-hiding-something article? Surely they can't be doing better than developed countries? FWIW, India did implement a stronger lockdown much earlier on in the curve than other countries. State and federal authorities went lock-step in their actions, and with consistent messaging. Police enforced the lockdown at times even brutally, getting the point across to the general public. Indian…
This is something that has really struck me during the Corona crisis: the misplaced Western believe of superiority towards Asian countries. I am European and I feel embarrassed about how much arrogance is displayed by some people and governments. It started already in the beginning, when the virus was spreading rapidly in China. Reports about the failing Chinese authority were all over the place, but nobody seemed to…
There was some interesting article about possibility that this virus is artificial. Author came to conclusion that it's possible, but there's no way to prove that (other than insider leaking strong proofs, of course). Modern virusology laboratory can create such a virus indeed and it'll be indistinguishable from a wild virus.
Unfortunately this article is in Russian, I'll provide google translate link, but it probably will be translated with errors.
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&u=https%3...
Re: India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
I flew from India to the US in early February (2nd week). Indian airports were doing thermal checks on passengers (using tech that had been installed during the Zika virus scare a few years back, I believe). The newspapers also had info about how anyone found with elevated temperatures were being asked to self quarantine, and the police was also following up. The US had, absolutely nothing. Nada. Before the flight I…
To be fair with the disinfectant that's been the case with India for years - I went in 2016 and they were doing it then as well.
Yep, since 2014 at least. I always assumed it was some kind of insecticide/pesticide? Is it just a disinfectant?
Re: India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates
#108Most countries in the tropics and southern henisphere are seeing low death rates regardless of how they handle the outbreak. Most likely heat stops covid-19, just like the cold.
You can verify this by graphing death rates against latitude.
Re: India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
These are confirmed cases, i.e. people who have tested positive. Actual cases, either in India or the UK, are unknown.
Even if India’s number is off by 2 orders of magnitude so the number of cases were actually ~70000 (highly unlikely, since those numbers would show up in hospitalizations), that would 70,000/1.4Bn, so about 1 in 20,000. NYC at 6000 cases meant it had approx 1 positive in 1000, and the UK at 6000 cases meant it had approx 1 positive in 10,000. So even if we assume that the US and UK were not undercounting, and that In…
India is a pretty big country and just assuming an equal distribution of cases doesn't seem very useful.
Re: India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates
#110Germany has suspiciously lower death rates, too... And that's down to the superior healthcare infrastructure there? I was wondering if something similar was happening in India. I was expecting to read about it more from a therapeutic treatment point of view-- Is India doing anything differently that results in higher recovery and lower death rates?