Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases • Hacker News Board

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#31

Post by ta51 » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

bongoman37 wrote: post #11

tim333 wrote: post #9

It's surprising how much worse the covid situation has recently got in India. If you look at the cases graph https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/india/ I'm not sure how it's gone from declining in Jan to super exponential in Mar/April?

2 major festivals, Holi and Kumbh Mela (attended by over 2m people with no social distancing or anything), massive election rallies in multiple states. Poor vaccination drive. A double mutant variant of the virus that seems to be faster spreading. Medical system collapsing, almost everything that could go wrong is going wrong.

- Why single out Holi and Kumbh, where there are large gatherings like political Farmers' protests, Ramadan and other religious gatherings are still going on, while the Kumbh (where entry into the district was with RT-PCR negative certificates) & has been called off at the Prime Minister's request.

- The majority of cases come from Maharshtra: 670388, UP:191457, Karnataka:133543, Chattisgargh:128019, Kerala:93683,Delhi:74941 (for a single city state these numbers are high) - which are non-election states. [Source]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103458/india- novel-coronavirus-covid-19-cases-by-state/

- Poor vaccination drive: Nothing can be father from the truth. India is one of the countries which has superb last mile vaccine delivery capability and connectivity till remote villages. Currently vaccination for 45+ age group is being rolled out successfully (with Covishield and Covaxin both). If anything there was lot of anti-vaxx created by media and politically vested interests which resulted in vaccine hesitancy. Now, the same voices are crying hoarse why we cannot vaccinate 1.3 billion people in a single month?

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#32

Post by photonios » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

sumanthvepa wrote: post #23

bongoman37 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 major festivals, Holi and Kumbh Mela (attended by over 2m people with no social distancing or anything), massive election rallies in multiple states. Poor vaccination drive. A double mutant variant of the virus that seems to be faster spreading. Medical system collapsing, almost everything that could go wrong is going wrong.

I live in India. Just got my first dose (Covishield -- which is the AstraZeneca derived vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute). The process was really smooth. Just went to the website, (I could have used the AarogySetup COVID app, but preferred not install it,) was given an appointment date. Turned up on the appointment date, stood in line (a longish line -- a 3 hour wait) and got my vaccine. Was made to wait f…

3 hours is just long-ish? I'd classify that as a very long wait.

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#33

Post by lotsofpulp » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 1:27 PM UTC

cblconfederate wrote: post #4

Can't the chairs of state start acting like CEOs of their countries rather than like royals who need to fly 200 people just to have a chat? They can talk on zoom, all we need to know is "chairman of india spoke to chairman of uk and the following things changed:"

In person conversations are to preserve plausible deniability, presuming they are not being recorded. I am only going to say things I want a transcript of over electronic mediums. CEOs do the same thing, and it is partly why being located in certain dense cities is so valuable.

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#34

Post by m0llusk » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 1:34 PM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #9

It's surprising how much worse the covid situation has recently got in India. If you look at the cases graph https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/india/ I'm not sure how it's gone from declining in Jan to super exponential in Mar/April?

There are almost certainly multiple factors involved. One thing to keep in mind is that the seasonal nature of coronavirus near the equator is very different from farther north with a double hump at the start and end of summer being the usual. It is possible that whatever people are doing and whatever mutations have occurred that some natural factor that we do not understand is contributing.

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#35

Post by m0llusk » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 1:38 PM UTC

ta51 wrote: post #31

bongoman37 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 major festivals, Holi and Kumbh Mela (attended by over 2m people with no social distancing or anything), massive election rallies in multiple states. Poor vaccination drive. A double mutant variant of the virus that seems to be faster spreading. Medical system collapsing, almost everything that could go wrong is going wrong.

- Why single out Holi and Kumbh, where there are large gatherings like political Farmers' protests, Ramadan and other religious gatherings are still going on, while the Kumbh (where entry into the district was with RT-PCR negative certificates) & has been called off at the Prime Minister's request. - The majority of cases come from Maharshtra: 670388, UP:191457, Karnataka:133543, Chattisgargh:128019, Kerala:93683,Del…

> Poor vaccination drive: Nothing can be father from the truth. India is one of the countries which has superb last mile vaccine delivery ...

It is true that India has done a fantastic job at producing and distributing vaccines. The problem is that the Indian population is absolutely vast, so the fraction of the population that has been successfully inoculated so far is disappointingly small. There is hope that continued robust progress with vaccination could turn the situation around but that is likely to take several more months.

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#36

Post by selfhoster11 » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 1:44 PM UTC

FraaJad wrote: post #26

teoru23434 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India and UK have essentially the same nominal GDP, while UK probably has ~ 1/20 the population. This despite not seeing none of the violent conflicts of East/SE Asia, either during the great war or after that. India consciously inherited the draconian colonial system of the past century, with all its inherent builtin cruelties, and has shown neither intent, nor any inclinations of changing this. It clearly serves th…

Bravo Sir. I must congratulate you on your bravery for creating an anonymous account just for this insightful comment.

Not everyone wants their controversial opionions on record under their pseudo-"real life" identity.

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#37

Post by acd10j » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 1:47 PM UTC

ta51 wrote: post #31

bongoman37 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 major festivals, Holi and Kumbh Mela (attended by over 2m people with no social distancing or anything), massive election rallies in multiple states. Poor vaccination drive. A double mutant variant of the virus that seems to be faster spreading. Medical system collapsing, almost everything that could go wrong is going wrong.

- Why single out Holi and Kumbh, where there are large gatherings like political Farmers' protests, Ramadan and other religious gatherings are still going on, while the Kumbh (where entry into the district was with RT-PCR negative certificates) & has been called off at the Prime Minister's request. - The majority of cases come from Maharshtra: 670388, UP:191457, Karnataka:133543, Chattisgargh:128019, Kerala:93683,Del…

So after Facebook, Twitter and Indian media, Modi propaganda bots have started bombarding HN as well !

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#38

Post by selfhoster11 » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 1:49 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #24

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would hardly consider Britain a failed state compared to the utter poverty, religious violence, and sexual inequality tens of millions face daily there.

I have to agree, despite having a strongly negative outlook for the U.K. — there are massive gaps between the two nations, made up for only by the enormous absolute population of India. Things may change quickly and surprise me, but even my 90% estimate for the U.K. is Brexit-related incompetence (as opposed to COVID-related, so yes things can go sideways for new and exciting reasons at short notice) is that the U.K.…

> I know that hypothetically the whole of the U.K. getting into internal conflicts equal to The Troubles in Northern Ireland (my gut says 5% chance of that) could be utterly devastating to the entire fabric of the nation… but that hasn’t happened yet

If I had to guess, I'd say the conflict is much much likelier to come back post-Brexit. Now that we're out of the EU, the "open movement" hack made possible by mutual EU membership no longer works without knock-on effects (customs checks, blah blah). I can't see Boris Johnson falling on the sword to safekeep the peace in NI, so if the push comes to shove, NI is more likely to be left to fend for themselves.

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#39

Post by HDMI_Cable » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 1:53 PM UTC

overcast wrote: post #16

tim333 wrote: post #9

It's surprising how much worse the covid situation has recently got in India. If you look at the cases graph https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/india/ I'm not sure how it's gone from declining in Jan to super exponential in Mar/April?

I don't think it's surprising to anyone that a country with a massive population, poor infrastructure, and greatly divided haves and have nots, are having a bad time. I'd be amazed if this is even 25% of the actual cases reported.

25% seems to low even. I've been to India a few times and the vast majority of people don't use the public health system (it's very bad) and prefer to die at home. I wouldn't be surprised if deaths were much higher and corrupt officials in private hospitals were downplaying the amount of cases.

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#40

Post by matt_the_bass » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

photonios wrote: post #32

sumanthvepa wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in India. Just got my first dose (Covishield -- which is the AstraZeneca derived vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute). The process was really smooth. Just went to the website, (I could have used the AarogySetup COVID app, but preferred not install it,) was given an appointment date. Turned up on the appointment date, stood in line (a longish line -- a 3 hour wait) and got my vaccine. Was made to wait f…

3 hours is just long-ish? I'd classify that as a very long wait.

Compared to what? That’s shorter than many voting lines in last US election. Shorter than waiting for an unscheduled bus in many countries. I agree it’s longer than I’d like but it’s all perspective.