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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

#11

Post by rrmm »

dao- wrote: post #8
rrmm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems countries are learning something from the those affected earlier which is good. But there are a huge number of under counts to be seen in the all-cause mortality data. I have my fingers crossed for everyone going through this, but only after the fact are we going to get a good idea of what happened (and that goes for Western countries too).

"U.S. deaths soared in early weeks of pandemic, far exceeding number attributed to covid-19" https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/27/cov...

exactly.

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

#12

Post by garyclarke27 »

Poor article, not even a single mention of the most likely reason for low death rate (apart from young population), the weather! Strong Sun (UV light) and high humidity quickly kills the virus. Warm countries like Thailand - despite millions of tourists from Wuhan - have low death rates. In Spain cold Madrid was affected much worse than sunnier south. Summer will soon rapidly kill of the virus in southern Europe.

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

#13

Post by manojlds »

newyankee wrote: post #4

While the reported deaths may be low, the 'they are hiding something' attitude is not helpful. India cannot do the level of testing that western countries do due to the humongous population. I can very well assure you in India you cannot hide mass deaths like China. A distant relative died of cardiac arrest and the measures were so strict that in a highly social society where paying respects to a deceased is consider…

A single case of suspected swine flu was reported so fast across whatsapp and social media. People don't understand how prevalent social media is in India and think people are just dying at homes. The BBC definitely is anti-India.

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

#14

Post by osobo »

garyclarke27 wrote: post #12

Poor article, not even a single mention of the most likely reason for low death rate (apart from young population), the weather! Strong Sun (UV light) and high humidity quickly kills the virus. Warm countries like Thailand - despite millions of tourists from Wuhan - have low death rates. In Spain cold Madrid was affected much worse than sunnier south. Summer will soon rapidly kill of the virus in southern Europe.

And then summer ends and fall begins and we start all over again. Only longer, this time.

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

#15

Post by mkl »

garyclarke27 wrote: post #12

Poor article, not even a single mention of the most likely reason for low death rate (apart from young population), the weather! Strong Sun (UV light) and high humidity quickly kills the virus. Warm countries like Thailand - despite millions of tourists from Wuhan - have low death rates. In Spain cold Madrid was affected much worse than sunnier south. Summer will soon rapidly kill of the virus in southern Europe.

From the article: "Yet 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 claims are not backed by any evidence."

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

#16

Post by carlsborg »

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…

India started lockdown when confirmed Covid deaths was at about 200 or 300 total. Its now at ~900 and doubling every ~10 days.

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

#17

Post by rusticpenn »

newyankee wrote: post #4

While the reported deaths may be low, the 'they are hiding something' attitude is not helpful. India cannot do the level of testing that western countries do due to the humongous population. I can very well assure you in India you cannot hide mass deaths like China. A distant relative died of cardiac arrest and the measures were so strict that in a highly social society where paying respects to a deceased is consider…

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.

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

#18

Post by ramraj07 »

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. The ambulance hasn't entered the street either. So unless there's a great conspiracy which most of us in the street are unaware, there really doesn't seem to be that many deaths. In fact the death rate is lower than normal, when people normally die, the first ritual is the blowing of a very loud horn in front of their house for an entire day. Haven't heard that in weeks. I live in the middle of the fifth biggest city in the country as well. It's likely many people in the street already have this but it's very unlikely that many or any have died from covid.

For reference, official disease tally for my city is now 570 cases.

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

#19

Post by pgo »

carlsborg wrote: post #16
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…

India started lockdown when confirmed Covid deaths was at about 200 or 300 total. Its now at ~900 and doubling every ~10 days.

You got the facts completely wrong, India started the lockdown when total deaths were just 10 !

Source: https://www.covid19india.org/

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

#20

Post by manojlds »

Anecdotally I know ex-colleagues who got Covid19 in the US and one of them has died.

I literally know of no one who is sick, much less with covid19, here in India in my friend circle, in my family circle and across the 1000+ employee company I work in. Either there's asymptomatic sick in my circle or no one has it.

Granted I am anxious, and hope things don't get worse, but international media has been pathetic on reporting this. I like the work that local The Print is doing. Very informative reporting from them - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuyRsHZILrU7ZDIAbGASHdA

Here's a good example and relevant to this discussion - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWuRA_2by-Q

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