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India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates

bbc.com

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Re: India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates

#121

Post by rramadass »

The article while making some valid points is full of insinuations. This is disingenuous.

The main reason for the low death rates is the lock-down/quarantine in place. India did this very quickly and very comprehensively. I would never have believed that such a lock-down would be followed and enforced in India if i were not living through it. It would be interesting to see how quickly the slope changes once the lock-down is lifted.

Other maybe contributing factors are; Sunlight & UV exposure, High Humidity, a healthy younger population, a better immune system (hygiene hypothesis) etc.

Simply said, the "Developed Western Nations" dropped the ball on recognizing the threat and putting in counter-measures and are now paying the price.

Re: India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates

#122

Post by chrismorgan »

vbezhenar wrote: post #112
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #96

I’m a (foreign) American citizen staying in India and happened to arrive here a few days before lockdown started. I don’t understand how this is a mystery: India quickly locked down the entire country and going outdoors was consistently punishable by police hitting people with sticks (thankfully it seems like the brutality has eased up since the start and police are doing things like making people write sorry on the…

Did you see police beating people yourself? I have a suspicion that it was made just for camera to scare people.

I have heard first-hand reports from people that saw a little of it.

Police beating people with lathis happened in many places all across the country, where people were insisting on breaking curfew, until people got the message. It’s also not terribly uncommon for the police to use such measures, especially where curfews are involved. I see no reason to doubt that it has been happening.

Re: India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates

#123

Post by rezeroed »

misja111 wrote: post #97
i_have_to_speak wrote: post #2

Ah 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…

I've not seen this - which country are you in? I've seen acknowledgement of South Korea's success, and criticism of China's failings.

Re: India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates

#124

Post by CivBase »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #96

I’m a (foreign) American citizen staying in India and happened to arrive here a few days before lockdown started. I don’t understand how this is a mystery: India quickly locked down the entire country and going outdoors was consistently punishable by police hitting people with sticks (thankfully it seems like the brutality has eased up since the start and police are doing things like making people write sorry on the…

A lockdown is not supposed to reduce the total number of cases; it is supposed to "flatten the curve" so those cases take a lot longer to develop. The intent is to drag the virus out for as long as possible so we can prepare our hospitals, develop more effective treatments, and get closer to a vaccine. A lockdown does not make the virus go away sooner; it prolongs it.

According to the Johns Hopkins dashboard[0], India has peeked. Just like most other nations, India seems to have made it through the worst of it and is now on a downward trend. That is the mystery.

The article makes a few suggestions. Maybe the virus hindered by the warmer climate. Maybe the strain in India is weaker than others. Maybe India's relatively young population is just more resilient. Unfortunately, we just don't know yet.

[0] https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594...

Re: India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates

#125

Post by _-___________-_ »

eric_b wrote: post #107
unicornfinder wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's an insecticide. It's common on routes to/from a number of countries.

Re: India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates

#126

Post by chrismorgan »

govg wrote: post #83
rusticpenn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People also forget that India has a lot of experience in handling epidemics. Nipha virus(2016?) was quickly reported and the spread was drastically reduced. However, I still am afraid that India might top the list of infections overtime. Its harder for a developing country to maintain a balance between economy and lockdown.

That experience was almost exclusively only one state - Kerala, and they have also handled this one in the best manner compared to the other states in the country.

Notwithstanding that, the provisions of the Epidemic Diseases Act of 1897 have been invoked a lot over the years—just normally in smaller areas than the entire country as it is at present. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemic_Diseases_Act,_1897

Re: India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates

#127

Post by ignoramous »

craftinator wrote: post #113
ignoramous wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>> 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 rich or poor. I think you misunderstood the parent comment. They are worried that the poor will be more negatively effected by the lockdown than by the coronavirus, in contrast to the rich. This has been observed in other countries, where the poor…

> I think you misunderstood the parent comment... the poor will be more negatively effected by the lockdown than by the coronavirus, in contrast to the rich.

GP said and I quote, "at the expense of the rich", which, to me, implies that somehow the rich are conspiring to persist with the lockdown. The families reliant on dialy-wages have always had massive problems in terms of education, healthcare, food, and shelter, and it isn't something the pandemic has birthed though it has aggravated it. There exists central and state government schemes to address these issues, but I wish there was a more systemic, consorted, and uniform approach to it with UBI and universal healthcare, instead.

Re: India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates

#128

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

eric_b wrote: post #107
unicornfinder wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's a disinsection (i.e. insect-killing) procedure; the pesticides permitted by the WHO are synthetic pyrethroids like permethrin.

ref. https://www.cdc.gov/features/pesticides-aircraft/index.html

Re: India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates

#129

Post by quantummkv »

gspr wrote: post #34
ramraj07 wrote: post #18

I can give some ground level information. I live in a very densely populated street (total length is just two hundred meters, my guess is at least a thousand people live here). No one is dying here without others noticing. Further, there's a great amount of scrutiny into whether anyone's sick (see the reports of doctors getting beaten up even by the cops). As far as I know, no one has died in this street in a month.…

> Further, there's a great amount of scrutiny into whether anyone's sick (see the reports of doctors getting beaten up even by the cops). What? Why are doctors being beaten up? I don't understand.

> What? Why are doctors being beaten up? I don't understand.

The anti-vax crowd in India tends to be on the violent side of things.

Re: India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates

#130

Post by dogma1138 »

sn41 wrote: post #86
dogma1138 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on how many people of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent are dying in the UK there is no indication that people form the Indian subcontinent have some genetic resiliency or immunity to the virus.

Indian, living in India presently, who lived in the US for almost a decade. I can relate a strange experience: I was never severely bedridden by flu or viral fever in India. I caught the flu during my stay in the US one February. I was so weak I could not even sit up in a chair for more than 15 minutes, I would doze off. I was in my bed for practically 5 days, was weak for a couple of weeks afterwards. I am back in I…

Because you are likely more resilient to local strains. Getting a flu / cold or the "shits" when traveling is very common, many westerners that travel to india and suffer some gastric discomfort blame the food for no real reason (tho ghee can have a cleansing effect if you over eat it).

India has quite high influenza mortality rates https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6815659/

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