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Why is India having a Covid-19 surge?

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Re: Why is India having a Covid-19 surge?

#41

Post by hasmanean »

webmobdev wrote: post #25

As an indian, this Pandemic is an eye opener to me on the devastating impact that flawed government policies have on its citizen. As the Pandemic began in India, most of the experts clearly said that all restrictions, like lockdowns, are just to slow down the spread of the disease temporarily , so that the healthcare infrastructure doesn't get overburdened. It was understood that India needed to upgrade existing hosp…

You said India is the worlds largest producers of oxygen and vaccines, but has a lack of trucks to transport them.

Is this the same old pattern of infrastructure in colonial economies where all the transportation links are designed to move goods to seaports for export—and not for moving goods inside the country?

That would be a terrible tragedy.

Re: Why is India having a Covid-19 surge?

#42

Post by damnedspot »

hasmanean wrote: post #38
roenxi wrote: post #8

At some point people really have to stop trying to guess what is going on in real-time and adopt a more patient, evidence based approach. India is huge, the healthcare system is said to be collapsing and most of them don't speak English. We aren't going to get coherent reporting in the English press for a few months. On the other hand, if we're worried about variants then I hope there are some hard conversations happ…

“Most of them don’t speak English?” That is so not true. English is compulsory in Indian schools and has been since partition. There are 125 million English speakers in India, second only to America. You will never find a shortage of people who speak English there, even in remote villages.

India has 125 million English speakers out of over a billion people total, so yes, most Indians don't speak English. That said, I disagree with the overall assertion that a language barrier between India and global English media is the reason for unsatisfying reporting. I suspect current events are just still too murky.

Re: Why is India having a Covid-19 surge?

#43

Post by ryandrake »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #35
ghaff wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm constantly reminded that I clearly live in something of a bubble. I think I know a few people who took a plane to ride out the pandemic somewhere they saw as safer and one person who took an international trip to do some business. But that's about it. And a lot of people I know, including myself, practically live in planes normally. Yet, while air travel is down significantly, it's not that far down. Certainly no…

My guess is: Many people just can't get a grip on themselves and their urges. Among friends I know, that I am the most strictly adhering to lockdown rules, even going beyond what the rules are. I don't visit people, I avoid being visited (even whatever number of people is allowed visiting each other. Just because one can, does not mean it is a great idea.) I try to tell close ones to avoid visits. Many days I don't l…

It's the awesome combined power of denial and selfishness. I've also had to do a tough re-evaluation of several friendships and relationships with family members. This pandemic brought out a lot of harsh truths about people's real selves. Here are some direct quotes from people I know. "We always have Thanksgiving dinner. It simply has to happen." "You can't just stop living life!" "I'm not going to let other people tell me what to do." "I am sure I won't get sick." "Play dates are OK because children can't spread it." "It's not that deadly." "You're in your 40s you have nothing to worry about, go out and live your life." "Stop being so scared." And these are all people who don't think it's all a hoax/conspiracy.

Re: Why is India having a Covid-19 surge?

#44

Post by ciguy »

hasmanean wrote: post #38
roenxi wrote: post #8

At some point people really have to stop trying to guess what is going on in real-time and adopt a more patient, evidence based approach. India is huge, the healthcare system is said to be collapsing and most of them don't speak English. We aren't going to get coherent reporting in the English press for a few months. On the other hand, if we're worried about variants then I hope there are some hard conversations happ…

“Most of them don’t speak English?” That is so not true. English is compulsory in Indian schools and has been since partition. There are 125 million English speakers in India, second only to America. You will never find a shortage of people who speak English there, even in remote villages.

125 million english speakers is still around ~10% of the population right? So if ~90% don't speak English then saying "most" seems accurate.

Re: Why is India having a Covid-19 surge?

#45

Post by elite_hackers3 »

ghaff wrote: post #11
roenxi wrote: post #8

At some point people really have to stop trying to guess what is going on in real-time and adopt a more patient, evidence based approach. India is huge, the healthcare system is said to be collapsing and most of them don't speak English. We aren't going to get coherent reporting in the English press for a few months. On the other hand, if we're worried about variants then I hope there are some hard conversations happ…

I'm constantly reminded that I clearly live in something of a bubble. I think I know a few people who took a plane to ride out the pandemic somewhere they saw as safer and one person who took an international trip to do some business. But that's about it. And a lot of people I know, including myself, practically live in planes normally. Yet, while air travel is down significantly, it's not that far down. Certainly no…

> And a lot of people I know, including myself, practically live in planes normally.

So you basically exist to emit large amounts of carbon?

Re: Why is India having a Covid-19 surge?

#46

Post by hesarenu »

lambdaba wrote: post #36
ryandrake wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if it's early and we just don't know yet? Everyone acts as though "COVID is almost behind us" which is part of why we keep seeing these new waves. We are in such a rush to get back to normal at all costs, and keep doing it too early.

If people would spend more time outside in summer, destressing, getting vitamin D, improving their immunity etc. then we can expect the current cycle to end as respiratory infectious diseases tend to. The coercive measures by govs are pushing in the opposite direction.

But is there any evidence that spending time outside, vitamin d etc reduces covid. April and May are peak summer time in India. Most of the states are open not in lockdown mode, but cases are growing rapidly.

Re: Why is India having a Covid-19 surge?

#47

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

roenxi wrote: post #8

At some point people really have to stop trying to guess what is going on in real-time and adopt a more patient, evidence based approach. India is huge, the healthcare system is said to be collapsing and most of them don't speak English. We aren't going to get coherent reporting in the English press for a few months. On the other hand, if we're worried about variants then I hope there are some hard conversations happ…

> To be honest, I'm confused by the amount of air travel that is still going on. If locking down large swathes of most countries is on the cards, why is there any air travel happening? Why was there a high profile diplomatic visit to India being planned? Are the benefits from all these plane trips really outweighing the costs? We may as well be trying to evolve COVID to sneak past quarantines. How is it acceptable to scuttle the economy in response to COVID, why are there still plane flights 12 months in to the pandemic?

I think the main reason is because air travel is heavily used by rich people and the professional managerial class.

If you look at the response, the people who bore the brunt of the pain were working class people and small business owners. The professional managerial class was mostly fine, just slightly inconvenienced.

When a politician is making decisions, they can’t really emphathiz me with your small business or restaurant getting shut down, but they do know from first hand experience, how much of a pain it would be if they were not able to fly, and all their corporate, NGO, and lobbyist buddies also know the pain that they would feel from not being able to fly around to where they wanted.

Re: Why is India having a Covid-19 surge?

#48

Post by AnotherGoodName »

hpoe wrote: post #26
newacct583 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for lack of trying, to be perfectly honest. The US mitigation response kept the virus just barely under the disaster threshold, despite major figures in the federal government actively opposing most of those measures at one time or another. But the vaccines worked, so those rich people got it done. mRNA was a gamble, but it paid off with first trials starting just weeks after the virus was sequenced and first dos…

So I see people always pointing out SK and NZ and Australia as great examples of handling the virus but it seems to me that naturally controlling travel through an island* would be much easier to do anyway, also an island is unlikely to end up as a major throughfare? Could this factor into the difference at all? *I know SK isn't technically an island but for all practical purposes it is.

A border policy helps stop infection coming in and internal mask+stay at home policies help when the infection is already in the city. Seoul, Sydney and Melbourne all had big outbreaks. The policies they took were effective in bringing the outbreak within the cities under control.

So yes border control helps but you shouldn't also discount policies such as the 'hard lockdowns' https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-53289616 where people cannot leave there homes at all for any reason if there's known cases in the immediate area.

Re: Why is India having a Covid-19 surge?

#49

Post by cmurf »

hpoe wrote: post #26
newacct583 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for lack of trying, to be perfectly honest. The US mitigation response kept the virus just barely under the disaster threshold, despite major figures in the federal government actively opposing most of those measures at one time or another. But the vaccines worked, so those rich people got it done. mRNA was a gamble, but it paid off with first trials starting just weeks after the virus was sequenced and first dos…

So I see people always pointing out SK and NZ and Australia as great examples of handling the virus but it seems to me that naturally controlling travel through an island* would be much easier to do anyway, also an island is unlikely to end up as a major throughfare? Could this factor into the difference at all? *I know SK isn't technically an island but for all practical purposes it is.

Ok and where is the evidence the spread is significantly due to land border crossings? You really think the U.S. was being infected by Mexicans and Canadians? Refugees? That India is being infected by some or all the countries surrounding them? You must necessarily think these are illegal crossings because legal ones require COVID testing.

All it takes is a critical mass of your own population getting it, followed by wide scale gathering of millions of people with no meaningful mitigations. That's the obvious and simple cause.

Re: Why is India having a Covid-19 surge?

#50

Post by bhanu423 »

hesarenu wrote: post #28
kshacker wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the first lockdown may not have been popular, the top 3 reasons for the second wave were 1) muddled message from the top with massive election rallies and no one wearing masks, 2) the religious kumbh congregation was allowed to proceed as normal while a similar (in comparison, a smaller muslim congregation was demonized last year to the extent of jailing some folks), and 3) total lack of preparation of vaccines…

Why this latching onto election rallies and kumbh. Cases are exploding in Karnataka. No election or Kumbh here. Same for Maharastra.

Do you really buy into the excuse that somehow election rallies and kumbh did not increase the severity of the problem at hand ? Its Standard whataboutery spewed constantly by the ruling party. They just don't even want to own up to their mistakes and the PM is staying silent as he is expecting everyone to forget and move on to the next hot topic. The Central Government allocated covid related very critical projects(Oxygen Plants) to companies that are now untraceable. The Projects itself were floated in Oct(7 months into the pandemic) so they took actually a lot of time to do the job so poorly that we don't have any special infrastructure ready. I mean if the Prime Minister is campaigning til the very day, the Election commission had to put a ban on it due to the exact reason. BJP is a power hungry party and they involve in open candidate buying in a lot of states post elections(The situation is so bad that the opposition parties actually have to camp with all of the leaders in a secluded resort to prevent any kind of horse-trading to happen). Modi government will never accept their mistakes, which we have already seen with demonetization(another useless idea of the current government, which had already broken's India's back financially), or jobs or various other front the current government is failing on.
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