India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by arel » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

dirtyid wrote: post #243

klmadfejno wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a painful cognitive dissonance that people seem to have about this disease. If your lockdown stops the spread of the disease, your population doesn't get immunity. No amount of infrastructure will allow the population to get immunity without all of the deaths that come with it. Absent effective medicines being developed, which are very unlikely to appear for a long time, countries need to consider that they'r…

Yeah, I don't see the point of crushing the curve in developing countries where it's not feasible to elevate substantially medical capacities. Where many people's ability to support themselves is a day by day process not paycheck to paycheck. It makes no sense to shut down hard other than political optics - all the rich countries are doing it therefore there's an expectation and pressure for leaders in these countrie…

The point is avoiding mass death. They care about their families lives too and not just economics.

It's not a 'political' choice or about 'optics'.

It's also not just 'old' people who are dying. It affects 50+ year olds in not insignificant numbers.

It depends whether you prioritise health or economics.

You can balance health and economics and choose to prioritise one _before_ the other.

It does however requires the political will to support the economy (and the poorest) whilst health care is prioritised to buy time during the exponential phase.

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

#252

Post by glofish » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

sharadov wrote: post #201

arihant wrote: post #150

This should not be a mystery at all. India locked down entire country (no state rights in Epidemics laws), despite federal structure. Very few things can be bought, even Amazon is only delivering "essentials." But more importantly, India has been contact tracing like a greedy algorithm on steroids since case #1. There was a positive case in a condo nearby mine. The entire condominium building and adjacent locality is…

India going all Wuhan on the virus. The difference between India and the US particularly is that it's lockdown lite in USA while it's full on there. You can't take a walk, you can't drive farther than 3 KM, cops will kick your butt and impound your vehicle. And the population by and large listens, while we have morons here who want lockdown eased to get haircuts.

there is no evidence for that whatsoever. You have absolutely no data on what takes place in India - it is a gigantic country with gigantic variation across. Plus the families are much larger, all confined together. When the train was shut down millions traveled back home for days on packed buses, it unlikely that any lockdown could have had such a pronounced effect so quickly.

The truth probably lies elsewhere, perhaps the population is overall a lot less susceptible, perhaps the genetics is such that adverse reactions are far less common, perhaps the weather conditions make the virus less virulent etc.

There is no way in hell that India was more locked down than Spain - yet Spain, with a population that is of a tiny fraction of India is still producing many more cases per day even today, more than a month after a full lockdown.

If anything Spain compared to say Sweden shows that brutal lockdowns don't work, the disease would have taken the same course had there been much less strict measures.

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

#253

Post by benibela » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #128

eric_b wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Pyrethoids are really used everywhere for everything

That is why bed bugs have become resistant to it

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

#254

Post by mbrameld » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

klmadfejno wrote: post #236

kumarvvr wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the official end game for all the countries that have lockdown? Have control over new infections and resulting hospitalizations so as to not overwhelm healthcare infrastructure. This is especially required in India, where a large section of the population is uneducated, lack propee facilities and live on daily wages, with little to no savings or assets. As in South Korea, the idea is to ramp up testing so tha…

There's a painful cognitive dissonance that people seem to have about this disease. If your lockdown stops the spread of the disease, your population doesn't get immunity. No amount of infrastructure will allow the population to get immunity without all of the deaths that come with it. Absent effective medicines being developed, which are very unlikely to appear for a long time, countries need to consider that they'r…

It's interesting that you mention cognitive dissonance while presenting a false dichotomy.

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

#255

Post by ra7 » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

kumarvvr wrote: post #192

manishsharan wrote: post #173

Minor nitpick on reporting : literally every person they quoted with Indian sounding names live and work outside of India. And the lone Indian source they quoted, Prof Reddy, was the only one who lived in India and he was the only one who was not skeptical of the numbers. Not one expert from India was used in the article,besides Prof. Reddy, which is a relatively open society.

BBC and a myriad of British mainstream publications are decisively Anti India in their general narrative.

The NYT is also notorious for the same narrative building. Anyone who is serious about Indian news knows NYT, BBC et al report stories that are far away from ground realities.

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

#256

Post by arel » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

klmadfejno wrote: post #236

kumarvvr wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the official end game for all the countries that have lockdown? Have control over new infections and resulting hospitalizations so as to not overwhelm healthcare infrastructure. This is especially required in India, where a large section of the population is uneducated, lack propee facilities and live on daily wages, with little to no savings or assets. As in South Korea, the idea is to ramp up testing so tha…

There's a painful cognitive dissonance that people seem to have about this disease. If your lockdown stops the spread of the disease, your population doesn't get immunity. No amount of infrastructure will allow the population to get immunity without all of the deaths that come with it. Absent effective medicines being developed, which are very unlikely to appear for a long time, countries need to consider that they'r…

There's a painful cognitive dissonance that people seem to have about this disease - there isn't an option (unless you don't care about lots of people dying) where the economy doesn't take a big hit in order to contain the exponential phase.

It's not clear what the alternatives are?

I assume you're not advocating a no measures approach.

No lockdown even with social distancing still does huge economic damage and even then you would not get herd immunity - 60% infection rate is required.

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

#257

Post by danans » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

_7fvc wrote: post #232

This virus seems sneaky. It's seasonal and it probably does not like heat. For countries closer to the equator, it has not done much damage. It's hard to hide deaths. I think the numbers are close to reality. But the virus may surge in these countries after summer when the heat recedes.

Sounds more and more like heat is a major factor, whose effect is amplified when coupled with the massive lockdown that India implemented. I wonder whether or not the heat will continue to keep it at bay after the lockdown is lifted.

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

#258

Post by fzeroracer » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

klmadfejno wrote: post #236

kumarvvr wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the official end game for all the countries that have lockdown? Have control over new infections and resulting hospitalizations so as to not overwhelm healthcare infrastructure. This is especially required in India, where a large section of the population is uneducated, lack propee facilities and live on daily wages, with little to no savings or assets. As in South Korea, the idea is to ramp up testing so tha…

There's a painful cognitive dissonance that people seem to have about this disease. If your lockdown stops the spread of the disease, your population doesn't get immunity. No amount of infrastructure will allow the population to get immunity without all of the deaths that come with it. Absent effective medicines being developed, which are very unlikely to appear for a long time, countries need to consider that they'r…

This is ignoring that disease immunity can massively vary, and if the antibodies only confer immunity for a few months, then this naive approach means we're back to step 1 relatively quickly.

This also ignores the potential for a chickenpox-like situation where the virus could reactivate itself, in which case exposing our population to the disease is just going to cause further issues down the line.

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

#259

Post by khuey » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

mikem170 wrote: post #200

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China’s first response to doctors reporting the virus was to send police to them and shut them up. I’ll gladly believe I live in a better country.

I had the impression, based on news articles at the time, that local officials were behind the initial coverup in Wuhan, lasting until national officials rectified the situation.

This is a common political trope in China used to shift responsibility away from the center and should not be taken at face value.

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

#260

Post by klmadfejno » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:44 PM UTC

moeffju wrote: post #240

klmadfejno wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a painful cognitive dissonance that people seem to have about this disease. If your lockdown stops the spread of the disease, your population doesn't get immunity. No amount of infrastructure will allow the population to get immunity without all of the deaths that come with it. Absent effective medicines being developed, which are very unlikely to appear for a long time, countries need to consider that they'r…

Aside from the fact that the jury's still out on whether infection actually confers immunity with Covid-19, the options are not just "get everyone infected" vs "eternal lockdown", you can actually suppress the disease to a level where new infections are rare and easily enough traced, or even completely absent.

You can do this in a closed system. India is not a closed system. At some point, someone is going to screw up. You can't shut down a city every time that happens.