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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

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- guaranteed to be endemic in countries that have not taken the necessary public health measures. Consequently there will be very tough restrictions on travellers from those countries. Maybe the world will divide into green and red zones?

It's simply not realistic to keep a highly infectious disease forever out of a country like India (unless the virus just doesn't thrive there for environmental or demographic reasons). What are they going to do, shut down entire cities every time there's a lapse in security? If the world did somehow divide into green and red zones, you would have a worse problem on your hands. The red zones are the wealthier western…

Land borders are of course harder to seal than air - but not impossible. Having to shut down entire cities if there is a breach will make their vigilance that much higher.

The green zone will prosper, perhaps those wealthier western countries finding themselves in the red zone will no longer look so desirable. Of course I'm hoping it won't come to this, but it does seem to be the direction we are heading.

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

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you looked at deaths? Or are you suggesting india's creating mass graves that media is not aware of, or doctors who aren't speaking out. I have a lot of relatives back in India who are doctors, and our hospitals aren't overwhelmed. There are very few cases. And they test every ICU admit for coronavirus.

india doesnt have mass graves not because 'they are doing it right' or they are 'hiding the bodies', but because ITS WARM AND HUMID AND YOUNG. people are acting like idiots when it comes to this virus. take this article: "...others talk about the possibilities of the presence of a less virulent strain of the virus in India, along with the possibility that its hot weather was diminishing the contagion. Both these clai…

You are comparing totally non sense timelines. Five days after NYC, but so many cases before NYC.

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

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're taking the opportunity, a grammatical error in the op's comment, to be combative and argumentative. Now you're just being dismissive of the plight of others and using your command of the language to minimize the situation. The pandemic and quarantine haven't just aggravated an untenable situation, they're pushing it to the limits. The poor can't afford to not work, the rich can afford to remain…

> It sounds like you're taking the opportunity... to be combative and argumentative. I'm sorry it comes off like that. My intention was to point out that this situation isn't of advantage to anyone regardless of their social or economic standing. Sure, a lockdown is harsher on some people than the others, but life, in general, is harsher on some people more than on the others. The pandemic is doing a great job at rin…

> I don't understand what part of my comment made you think I'm cold to their struggles.

As I said, it's the minimizing choice of language and your choice to ignore a grammatical error.

> I'm not the one mentally replacing at the expense of with in contrast to.

As I said before you're ignoring the grammatical errors in that sentence and paraphrasing to suit your argument.

> GP said and I quote, "at the expense of the rich",

That isn't what was said. The full quote:

> I'm only worried that the lockdown is going to significantly affect the poorer communities worse at the expense of richer folks.

Which is grammatically incorrect and doesn't make sense. However given the context and the structure of the sentence it's hard to draw the conclusion that you did. Rather, it's more likely the op mean to say something like:

> I'm only worried that the lockdown is going to significantly affect the poorer communities worse than richer folks.

But some how you've interpreted it to mean that the richer are willing to accept some self harm if it means harming poor communities?

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

#304

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-…

Most Western nations are doing fine. There's really just a dozen or so countries that have been hit hard, and even then the impact has been uneven within the hardest hit countries.

> Most Western nations are doing fine.

I think except the US, the UK, France, Spain and Italy; all other Western nations are doing fine.

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

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, for 330 Million people, USA has had 60k deaths from C19 so far, whereas India has had about 1000 deaths in about 1300 Million people. The western Nations are doing abysmally.

You ignored my comment to say what you wanted to say. Many Western nations are doing great. They are handling the pandemic very well and have less strict lockdowns than India.

A stringent lockdown in India is not an option but a necessity considering the population. In fact, as others have pointed out, areas with confirmed cases are sealed with all movement in and out of it tightly restricted.

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

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It sounds like you're taking the opportunity... to be combative and argumentative. I'm sorry it comes off like that. My intention was to point out that this situation isn't of advantage to anyone regardless of their social or economic standing. Sure, a lockdown is harsher on some people than the others, but life, in general, is harsher on some people more than on the others. The pandemic is doing a great job at rin…

> I don't understand what part of my comment made you think I'm cold to their struggles. As I said, it's the minimizing choice of language and your choice to ignore a grammatical error. > I'm not the one mentally replacing at the expense of with in contrast to. As I said before you're ignoring the grammatical errors in that sentence and paraphrasing to suit your argument. > GP said and I quote, "at the expense of the…

Ah, gotcha. Thanks for clearing that up.

Fwiw, I didn't somehow interpret it purposefully in any sinsiter way or choose to ignore an error to start an argument. For some reason, that's just how I read it.

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

#308

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-…

Most Western nations are doing fine. There's really just a dozen or so countries that have been hit hard, and even then the impact has been uneven within the hardest hit countries.

Who counts as a 'Western Nation'? [0] I think most people would assume Western Europe and the Anglophones (USA, CAN, AUS, NZ).

If we assume that the US counts in the "hit hard" category, then we can partition western nations by per-capita deaths[1] like so:

Hit Hard: Belgium, Italy, France, Spain, UK, Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, US

Not: Portugal, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand

So I'm guessing that you either a) have a different definition of "hit hard" or b) have an expanded definition of "Western Nation". Eastern Europe and Latin America as regions haven't been hit hard yet.

The impact of covid-19 depends a lot on when it started spreading in a region. Most of the differences between European nations are probably due to when it started. A nation's response mostly affects how it compares to other nations which had outbreaks at the same time. I would guess that India is benefiting most from reacting early in the disease progression relative to other nations.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

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

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously a lockdown can cause the number of cases to go down. There's no mystery here. There are many countries doing the same. Yes, it is "supposed" to flatten the curve always keeping some manageable number of people infected. So if you reduce the number of cases any further you are doing it wrong; because no, you won't extinguish the virus, you'll only prolong the lockdown.

So what do you think is the alternative?

Reduce activity as little as possible (if your local health care is overwelmend, that is a total lockdown), and keep watching the curve. If you get spare health care capacity, free people a bit, if that capacity fills-up put restrictions back.

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

#310
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you get "R" below 1, the number of cases goes down. Once the number of cases is small enough, you can identify and quarantine all of them. With a good enough testing infrastructure this gets easier. You can then have a "selective" lockdown only around actual cases.

> Once the number of cases is small enough, you can identify and quarantine all of them. A nation is not a closed system so I don't see that ever working out.

What about the eventual vaccine?
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