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India’s second wave

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Re: India’s second wave

#221

Post by grecy »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #169
grecy wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada, Australia & New Zealand (and I'm sure many other countries) have done an excellent job providing money to people who are stuck at home because they can't go to work. Here in Canada it was $500/week for 28 weeks, then you moved onto a different scheme if you still needed support. Everyone who needed it go it. We have not been desperately waiting for a pittance of $1200. Be careful not to generalize that all de…

>> We have not been desperately waiting for a pittance of $1200. No, we've been desperately waiting for vacinnes after being repeatedly promised there will be plently for everyone ("look at all these contracts we've signed!") while they pay you off with massive borrowing that someone is going to be responsible for when the music stops. Meanwhile Texas, the poster-child for bad behaviour, is headed back to normal.

> Meanwhile Texas, the poster-child for bad behaviour, is headed back to normal.

Fifty THOUSAND people died in Texas. I'm not sure how anyone can hold it up as a *good" comparison.

Re: India’s second wave

#222

Post by zamalek »

Exmoor wrote: post #110
gruez wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how do they know a cremation was for a covid-19 victim?

You don't, but if the death rates are generally stable and predictable a huge increase during a COVID wave seems highly likely to be related. There have been plenty of analysis of various countries mortality rates compared to normal years. In general, the trend seems to be that poorer countries have probably missed a lot of COVID deaths due to lack of testing infrastructure and heavily rural populations. https://www.…

> You don't, but if the death rates are generally stable [...]

For example: if a crematorium has historically dealt with 20 cremations a week and is now doing 100 a week, you can estimate that 80 people are dying from COVID per week. The estimate is likely to be pretty inaccurate, but it's the best source of information that there is.

Re: India’s second wave

#223

Post by f00zz »

supernovae wrote: post #193
nostromo wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a certain point you run out of money. The US can print trillions of dollars in an emergency as a world reserve currency. Most countries cannot do this. The idea that India could just pay 1.4 billion people not to work for a year doesn't seem like a realistic proposal.

On what premise? This kind of talk presumes economies and governments don't serve the will of the people. I mean, lets be real, if they don't serve the will of the people then the economy and government is short term and lockdowns were never the problem, but a symptom...

Not every country has the privilege of having the world's reserve currency. Money printing never ends well for poor countries.

Re: India’s second wave

#224

Post by gilbetron »

nostromo wrote: post #188
supernovae wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't get is why we call ourselves democracies and speak as "lockdowns hurt poor people very badly" In a representative democracy, you wouldn't lock down and force people to starve - you would lock down and provide income/food/capabilities for people to live regardless of their social/economic status. locking down isn't why poor people hurt, locking down and doing nothing to feed them does. It's like this pand…

At a certain point you run out of money. The US can print trillions of dollars in an emergency as a world reserve currency. Most countries cannot do this. The idea that India could just pay 1.4 billion people not to work for a year doesn't seem like a realistic proposal.

The point isn't to do it for a year, but to do it for 2-3 weeks in a very strict manner. If you prepare for it, and then do it every time the spread starts going exponential, then you can keep the numbers incredibly low until vaccines are distributed.

Re: India’s second wave

#225

Post by chrismat »

grecy wrote: post #221
skeeter2020 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> We have not been desperately waiting for a pittance of $1200. No, we've been desperately waiting for vacinnes after being repeatedly promised there will be plently for everyone ("look at all these contracts we've signed!") while they pay you off with massive borrowing that someone is going to be responsible for when the music stops. Meanwhile Texas, the poster-child for bad behaviour, is headed back to normal.

> Meanwhile Texas, the poster-child for bad behaviour, is headed back to normal. Fifty THOUSAND people died in Texas. I'm not sure how anyone can hold it up as a *good" comparison.

The population of Texas is 29,000,000 - so even (incorrectly) assuming that these 50,000 people died exclusively from Covid and not compounded by several co-morbities... that's 0.17% of the state's population. And even as a factor of the number of cases in TX (2.84mil, last check), that comes to 1.7%.

Re: India’s second wave

#226

Post by JohnCohorn »

supernovae wrote: post #196
maxerickson wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we need a UBI that makes it easy to live in a city where ~$3000 month ($2400 + normal unemployment) won't cover expenses including housing.

2400 a month is rent here in Austin - and not even expensive rent. Without income, those rentals will foreclose/be evicted. Are you saying future pandemic responses should imply much of society simply deserves to be destitute?

> 2400 a month is rent here in Austin

Just no, not unless you live in a luxury dwelling or location. Here’s an example place I used to live long ago. Centrally located, next to the major highways, and not unsafe. It’s old and not fancy, but under $1000 and your living expenses can be much lower than that with a roommate. https://www.livechevychase.com/floorplans

Re: India’s second wave

#227

Post by vsundar »

qart wrote: post #25

Lockdowns hurt poor people very badly; they need to earn to survive. All the more reason everyone should mask up. And yet, most people stopped masking months ago. Crowds are as bad as they were in 2019. On top of that, doctors here have created a craze for remdesivir, resulting in a blackmarket for it. The central and state governments have mismanaged plenty of things. While they deserve their share of blame, the ord…

While I do think it is true that people break norms, I'd say a large factor here has been the messaging and leaders behaving like the danger is past.

Leaders like the home minister, Amit Shah [1] and the health minister Harsh Vardhan [2] have been saying that we are in the end stage from Jan. Starting vaccinations is not the end game. We opened up for crowds for a cricket match (57k) [3] and kumbh mela [4] (actively promoted by the state and central govt), where the latter was expecting crowd in millions. (10 lakhs is 1 million). Covid protocol could really not be followed with that crowd [11]. We literally had an Assam minister saying that masks weren't needed earlier this month[6]. And of course election rallies with big crowds [5]. PM Modi was exulting about a huge crowd just a few days ago [12] Amit Shah was actually saying these are not related to the spikes [13]

I'd actually lay the blame on these:

- Inconsistent messaging on safety precautions.

- Vaccine shortage and related slow vaccination drives. India did not give advance orders and stockpile vaccines [8]

- Oxygen shortage. We already know oxygen was needed. The govt didn't follow through and build capacity for oxygen plants. We floated tenders 8 months into the pandemic and didn't follow through [9]

- We did not pay attention to and sequence variants to stay on top of things. [10]

I could go on... we are short various medicines, facilities; state govts of Gujarat, UP, MP, Bihar were actively under reporting by sometimes more than 10x [13]- if you don't acknowledge the problem, you can't fix the problem; not opening up vaccinations to everyone and not letting in vaccines that were already approved outside (both until very recently); not listening to folks who were trying to point these out...

Apologies for the long response. But yea, I'm shocked at how bad things are, and, while I think people can follow rules better, I'd squarely lay the blame for this on the govt.

[1] https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/union-home-minister-amit-sha...

[2] https://www.indiatoday.in/coronavirus-outbreak/story/we-are-...

[3] https://www.thestadiumbusiness.com/2021/03/15/narendra-modi-...

[4] https://www.thequint.com/news/india/massive-crowd-gathers-fo...

[5] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/covid-has-a-...

[6] https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/assam-health-minister-himan...

[7] https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2020/dec/22/no-masks...

[8] https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/how-we-landed-in-covid-...

[9] https://scroll.in/article/992537/india-is-running-out-of-oxy...

[10] https://scroll.in/latest/990519/coronavirus-less-than-1-samp...

[11] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/maha-kumbh-m...

[12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5jzuE866lo

[13] https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1384782949879517185 (may have to go through the twitter link to access ft article)

Re: India’s second wave

#228

Post by habibur »

gilbetron wrote: post #224
nostromo wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a certain point you run out of money. The US can print trillions of dollars in an emergency as a world reserve currency. Most countries cannot do this. The idea that India could just pay 1.4 billion people not to work for a year doesn't seem like a realistic proposal.

The point isn't to do it for a year, but to do it for 2-3 weeks in a very strict manner. If you prepare for it, and then do it every time the spread starts going exponential, then you can keep the numbers incredibly low until vaccines are distributed.

That's a dream. Money don't feed people. Foods do. And human activity necessary to feed a billion people sitting at home will require another billion to do the production, distribution and organization in a timely manner.

And the whole point of lockdown was to prevent people from performing these movements.

I don't see a good solution here.

Re: India’s second wave

#229

Post by [deleted] »

supernovae wrote: post #157
qart wrote: post #25

Lockdowns hurt poor people very badly; they need to earn to survive. All the more reason everyone should mask up. And yet, most people stopped masking months ago. Crowds are as bad as they were in 2019. On top of that, doctors here have created a craze for remdesivir, resulting in a blackmarket for it. The central and state governments have mismanaged plenty of things. While they deserve their share of blame, the ord…

What I don't get is why we call ourselves democracies and speak as "lockdowns hurt poor people very badly" In a representative democracy, you wouldn't lock down and force people to starve - you would lock down and provide income/food/capabilities for people to live regardless of their social/economic status. locking down isn't why poor people hurt, locking down and doing nothing to feed them does. It's like this pand…

[deleted]

Re: India’s second wave

#230

Post by macintux »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #211
supernovae wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These numbers don't mean much on their own. Sure, if you live with mom and pop and you got laid off from a job and had a place to fall back onto, yippee If you live in pretty much any major city and you're the breadwinner then it doesn't cover rent/mortgage. We froze foreclosures, so there are estimated millions pending. Unemployment is still in pre-pandemic numbers - all though improving. I think our reliance on "jo…

In Seattle, I know people who received the equivalent of $75k/year on unemployment from various government sources. That exceeds the median household income in the State, never mind individual income. This is on top of, in some cases, a generous severance. That easily covered their mortgage and their lifestyle, even in this expensive city, and was in no way sustainable. They had no interest in looking for work while…

Conversely I know a young couple in Indiana who have no idea how they’re going to feed themselves each week. There are always examples of abuse to point to, but for many people the safety net is a wet paper bag at best.
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