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

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

#341
post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A lot of Asian countries are indeed showing that this is possible. That's good news! Good luck trying to contain the flu that way. SARS-COV2 seems to be very virulent, but not so virulent like flu or measles that it can't be contained.

Isn't R0 for COVID supposed to be much higher than flu? That was one of the major parts of the arguments for lockdown that I've seen.

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

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are forgetting about international trade, tourism and migrant work. The only country I'm aware of that was a "green zone" pre-COVID is North Korea; it didn't exactly prosper.

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

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then there are city level containment zones for tiny colonies (say 3-4 km^2 Radius) when even a single case is detected, where nothing is allowed, groceries are delivered by authorities. Then there are sub - total city wide lockdowns in certain states where absolutely no travel is allowed. Lockdown limits can be increased by the states, but limits imposed by the center can't be diluted. Overall, the reason is ver…

These are interesting strategies, are there places to read more? Most of my Indian friends are the South and wealthy, they're locked down in multi generation compounds and lamenting cleaning for themselves for the first time - maids sent home. The situation doesn't sound as bad on the ground but I'm skeptical in the sense that my province in Canada has imported 16 cases from India, which is on par with Iran (19), Cub…

Government of India launched an app for contact tracing weeks before Google and Apple announced making one, which relies on GPS and bluetooth to monitor.

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

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The speeding has been happening all over the US too and it makes me sick. These people should be fined into oblivion, cars impounded, licenses revoked. Now is not the time to be creating extra problems for society.

Typical city dwelling urbanite bugman attitude. There's never been a time when people weren't speeding at every chance, and there's never been a safer time to do it. Pretty sure if you continue to hide in your apartment you'll be safe from the bad people who are driving faster than the 1950s norm. LICENSES REVOKED, he says, SHOULD NEVER DRIVE AGAIN. You sound like an old church lady waving an umbrella.

So you come across pandemics and traffic accident risks and your response is you want to stay drunk on adrenaline.

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

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget that part, since when do doctors get abused in Pakistan (except in the brawl by lawyers recently)? What’s a basis for this speculation?

Huh. I thought that this was common knowledge. > The Taliban began assassinating polio workers the year after the CIA used a vaccination campaign for hepatitis B, not polio, to identify Osama bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150303-polio... > There has been opposition to such immunisation drives from some powerful clerics while a fake CIA vaccination campaign, which h…

Yeah but it's quite a leap from polio vaccinators getting waxed and Shakil Afridi being jailed to "Doctors have a bad reputation in Pakistan" and then imply it's because it's a Muslim country. Many (even conservative) parents send their daughters to publicly financed medical colleges often to increase their marriage prospects. Does that sound like a thing they would do if doctors had a bad rap? Doctors came out and criticized the clerics for lack of adherence to social distancing, I didn't see anyone call them un-Islamic for standing their ground.

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

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Austin. There was a confirmed case in my building and the best we got was a vague email from the management saying that someone had it and that the person had used the mailroom the Saturday before (we got the email on a Wednesday).

Management is being vague on purpose, due to HIPAA.

it's unlikely an apartment building's management is familiar at all with HIPAA. it's more likely incompetence or like most things in the u.s., a lackadaisical attitude towards the viral outbreak. i doubt HIPAA applies to a global pandemic. that's not its purpose.

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

#348
post #83

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.

That was just one example. In India, they regularly deal with breakouts like cholera, swine flu, malaria etc.

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

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are interesting strategies, are there places to read more? Most of my Indian friends are the South and wealthy, they're locked down in multi generation compounds and lamenting cleaning for themselves for the first time - maids sent home. The situation doesn't sound as bad on the ground but I'm skeptical in the sense that my province in Canada has imported 16 cases from India, which is on par with Iran (19), Cub…

> These are interesting strategies, are there places to read more? Here's WEF's report on India's cluster-containment strategy[1]. >Most of my Indian friends are the South and wealthy India of Wealthy is radically different from others, Just $77,000 is required to be at the top 1% in the country[2]. > my province in Canada has imported 16 cases from India, That's indeed very interesting. India stopped International f…

Regarding [5], it says infection rate but talks about absolute number of cases. Which isn't a big surprise to be second in, India is a big country.

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

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh. I thought that this was common knowledge. > The Taliban began assassinating polio workers the year after the CIA used a vaccination campaign for hepatitis B, not polio, to identify Osama bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150303-polio... > There has been opposition to such immunisation drives from some powerful clerics while a fake CIA vaccination campaign, which h…

Yeah but it's quite a leap from polio vaccinators getting waxed and Shakil Afridi being jailed to "Doctors have a bad reputation in Pakistan" and then imply it's because it's a Muslim country. Many (even conservative) parents send their daughters to publicly financed medical colleges often to increase their marriage prospects. Does that sound like a thing they would do if doctors had a bad rap? Doctors came out and c…

Maybe so. But I never claimed that it was mainstream in Pakistan. Just that it might account for this in ramraj07's comment:[0]

> 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).

Perhaps they could share a link about that.

0) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23005076

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