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India’s second wave

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Re: India’s second wave

#291

Post by mrow84 »

boyadjian wrote: post #105
mrow84 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title of the piece is "‘It is much worse this time’: India’s devastating second wave". Given that the discussion is of the exponential increases in both cases and deaths, it seems clear that the "it" in the title refers to "the pandemic", not "life in general". My response followed this interpretation, despite the wording of your questions - clearly I should have been more explicit: "How would the lockdowns have…

I do not say that the lockdowns make the pandemic worse, I say that the lockdowns make life of people worse. The mass media are making a great confusion, between "pandemic" and "life in general", and so do people, and that's what I am specifically criticizing.

You are certainly right, the lockdowns do make the lives of most people worse, some significantly more so than others.

The pandemic, however, directly threatens people's lives. There have been 33,815 confirmed covid deaths in India since the start of the year, and 3 million around the world since the beginning of the pandemic. I think it is unrealistic to suggest that there have been anything remotely like that number attributable to lockdown over those timeframes.

Re: India’s second wave

#292

Post by sombremesa »

KorematsuFred wrote: post #232
fareesh wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy is the system of elected representatives. You can elect a government that is completely opposed to welfare programs. India has some of the hardest working people in the world, and it's a shame the way many have been treated by government programs. Government handouts have created a culture in which many of the poor are at the mercy of corrupt bureaucrats just to get by. "What's that you say? Your rice allot…

I was born poor. One american idea that does resonate with me after coming to USA is that a lot of poor people do not see themselves as poor. While their struggles are real they do not see themselves as losers but rather see themselves as strugglers who will eventually make it some day. They make life better for themselves and others. That was the case with my family. We lived in a house whose floor was basically pai…

> I was born poor.

You can get out of being poor. You cannot get out of being dalit[0].

> While their struggles are real they do not see themselves as losers but rather see themselves as strugglers who will eventually make it some day.

Only about 20% of Indians can afford to have even aspirations. About 66% cannot. 18% struggle to even survive. Newspaper? They would eat it. [1] (data from 2016)

> They then propose that government must help them. Guess what, other than a small fraction of poor people most DO NOT want that help.

The relationship between the government and the people in India is very different from what you are probably used to. It's true that many people in India don't want the government's "help", but that's because this "help" is usually exploitation. They'd be lucky to be left alone. [2]

> If people are angry and fed up and willing to risk their lives

You have to pass a certain threshold of awareness to be categorized as "willing". Most of these people have no idea what the consequences of their actions are. Almost a third(!) of the women in India cannot even read or write. [3]

> What we need is some humility to recognize that just because someone else has less money than we do, that does not reduce their self worth or gives us the right to know "what they need".

Should the same litmus test apply to your post about the Indian condition?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalit#Discrimination [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/482584/india-households-... [2] https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/governance/why-india-s-p... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_India

Re: India’s second wave

#293

Post by mrow84 »

christophilus wrote: post #212
mrow84 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deaths are clearly exponentially increasing: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

Am I reading that correctly? The exponential spike represents approximately 1.5 deaths in a million?

Correct, 2,023 people on the 20th April.

Re: India’s second wave

#294

Post by HappySweeney »

maxerickson wrote: post #205
supernovae wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Unable to afford $2400 month housing in an expensive city isn't the same thing as destitute. There's houses available in much of the country for $100,000 or less. I'm fine arguing that people can have the option to struggle paying high rent or move, we don't need to pay the high rent just because they prefer the place.

Those houses are $100k or less because the only jobs nearby don't pay enough to buy something more expensive.

Re: India’s second wave

#295

Post by makomk »

selimthegrim wrote: post #282
makomk wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a fairly typical place for a western country to be at this stage of the pandemic. Because of the way the disease spread via inter-country travel from, mostly, Italy and surrounding countries, the developed western world was hit first - and because people have to be tested in order for their deaths to be recorded as Covid-19 related, only countries with a reasonably well-developed healthcare system and economy ac…

The CDC failures at the beginning were a stitchup by the Democrats? Quick, write your article in time for the Pulitzer!

The reporting on the CDC's failures certainly was a stitchup on behalf of the Democrats. For example, the US had a really aggressive rollout of Covid-19 testing compared to Europe and other places which would've left it much better equipped to spot community spread early on when the number of cases was still small - right up until the point the reagents turned up at labs and didn't work, and ages was wasted working out why. Turns out some nominally well-qualified, non-partisan CDC official had covered up the fact the tests were contaminated and let them roll out to labs anyway. You wouldn't know this from the media reporting which inverted the blame, telling their readers it was Trump and his administration which decided not to have widespread Covid testing, that any screw-ups were due to his political appointees, and literally had people begging in the NYT comments section for career CDC staff to take over the running of the whole pandemic response because at least they were competent, unlike Trump and co.

Re: India’s second wave

#297

Post by selimthegrim »

makomk wrote: post #295
selimthegrim wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CDC failures at the beginning were a stitchup by the Democrats? Quick, write your article in time for the Pulitzer!

The reporting on the CDC's failures certainly was a stitchup on behalf of the Democrats. For example, the US had a really aggressive rollout of Covid-19 testing compared to Europe and other places which would've left it much better equipped to spot community spread early on when the number of cases was still small - right up until the point the reagents turned up at labs and didn't work, and ages was wasted working o…

I think you are letting Trump appointees at the CDC off far too easily: https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-the-fall-of-the-cd...

'McGowan reached his breaking point when Redfield asked him to stop the deportation of a dog, according to people who worked closely with him.

In late June, a Peace Corps volunteer evacuated from West Africa was told that the rabies vaccine of her dog, a terrier mix named Socrates, was not valid. Rabies vaccines are marked with pink dye, and a photo of Socrates’ vaccination showed a clear liquid, a CDC email said. Border authorities said Socrates had to be sent back to Africa, revaccinated and quarantined there for 28 days before returning. The Peace Corps volunteer sparked a #SaveSocrates outcry on social media.

CDC experts told McGowan that the last foreign dog with rabies that slipped through had cost more than $500,000 in public health charges, including shots for 44 people who had been near the animal, an email shows. Making an exception threatened to render the policy unenforceable for the 500 animals that are deported every year.

At a time when the pandemic had killed nearly 130,000 Americans, McGowan spent an hour and a half on the phone with the HHS general counsel and other senior officials to figure out how to make an exception for a dog. All the while, he told colleagues, his mind kept returning to the fact that the same administration was using the CDC’s quarantine power to deport thousands of children at the border with Mexico.

Later that day, Brian Harrison, the HHS chief of staff and a former labradoodle breeder, announced the liberation of Socrates. Secretary Azar tweeted out the news with the hashtag #SaveSocrates.

Privately, McGowan fumed.

“He was sad, downtrodden and defeated,” a colleague said. “This was really the final straw for him: How we are going to let dogs in, but basically we’re going to require children to be carted off and out of the country? And all in the name of public health.”

McGowan resigned in August.

The following month, Caputo took a medical leave after he hosted a live video on his personal Facebook in which he accused “deep state scientists” of “sedition” and warned his followers to stock up on ammunition in anticipation of political upheaval. In that rant, which was reported by The New York Times, Caputo said CDC scientists had only changed out of their sweatpants to meet at coffee shops and plot “how they’re going to attack Donald Trump next.”'

Re: India’s second wave

#298

Post by makomk »

grecy wrote: post #287
makomk wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a fairly typical place for a western country to be at this stage of the pandemic. Because of the way the disease spread via inter-country travel from, mostly, Italy and surrounding countries, the developed western world was hit first - and because people have to be tested in order for their deaths to be recorded as Covid-19 related, only countries with a reasonably well-developed healthcare system and economy ac…

> It's a fairly typical place for a western country to be at this stage of the pandemic I'm horrified you can waive it away as "fairly typical" for a western country when Texas has a deaths/1 million population 3 times that of Canada, 4 times that of Denmark and on and on.

Denmark has about half the Covid-19 deaths per capita of the next highest European country based on the figures I've found. They're very much not typical. Neither is Canada, though I haven't been able to figure out what gave them such good results early on since they didn't do anything that unusual and it really doesn't seem to have lasted (their new infection rate crossed that of the US and hit an all-time high recently). Denmark's the usual combination of being reasonably well distanced from Italy geographically and geopolitically, strict border closures starting in March 2020, and a certain amount of lockdown and social distancing mixed in - there's a handful of countries like that with reasonable results. (The other Nordic countries minus Sweden, New Zealand, and Australia spring to mind. Think there's a few others as well, but not many.)

Re: India’s second wave

#299

Post by ls612 »

ncallaway wrote: post #156
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish people gave a bit more shit about protecting themselves properly I wish people gave a bit more shit about protecting others properly. The people who don't wear masks properly are the ones who think only about themselves ("this mask won't protect me anyway") and don't care about how masks help protect the people around them.

Absolutely this. People who refuse to wear a mask around others, or intentionally wear one poorly are just telegraphing how little they care for other people.

I'm vaccinated, why the hell should I wear a mask besides the fact that the government says so? The odds of me having any detectable viral load to transmit are extremely low. [1]

[1]https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0329-COVID-19-Vacci...

Re: India’s second wave

#300

Post by rictic »

sgt101 wrote: post #289
ridethebike wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if China didn't manage coronavirus successfully we'd have seen numbers of deaths due to "some winter cold" so large that even communist party wouldn't be able to hide

Really? They did a pretty good job of hiding a host of vast reeducation centres....

Did they? You can rely on your reader to know that you're referring to Xinjiang.
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