Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 62 posts

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#51

Post by ben_w »

cblconfederate wrote: post #49
ben_w wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like the Tal Shiar, if we’re using Trek references — politicians don’t try to deny emotions.

they should, it's just a job, not their personal drama

Everyone’s personal drama is their job, to some extent or another. You don’t get to run a country unless you can get people emotionally invested in you doing so, because if the electorate — be it the whole nation in a democracy or the aristocrats in a monarchy — is not into you, they’ll pick someone else instead of you.

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#52

Post by ben_w »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #38
ben_w wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I’m guesstimating P(The Troubles | limited to just the range and belligerents as last time) ~= 0.75

The thing I’m saying is p ~= 0.05 is P(The Troubles | scaled up from NI to whole UK), which would be ~123,500 dead and ~1,662,500 injured.

This is one of several reasons why I no longer live in the U.K.

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#53

Post by bongoman37 »

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…

Kumbh mela is going to be probably the single largest super spreader event in the entire world. About 10-12% of people returning from there are testing positive.

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#54

Post by bongoman37 »

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…

Under 45 people are not even eligible to get vaccinated unless you are a health care worker or well connected. The second wave is being largely driven by people in the 25-45 age group. Less than a percent of India's population is vaccinated against Covid-19.

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#55

Post by voisin »

acd10j wrote: post #37
ta51 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- 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 !

For those of us not close to this topic, how do you assess the veracity of OP’s statements?

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#56

Post by acd10j »

voisin wrote: post #55
acd10j wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

For those of us not close to this topic, how do you assess the veracity of OP’s statements?

Recently created handle just to defend Modi government narrative, Using other religions (read Muslim) as scapegoat in defense. Just look at the pictures of large number of people being gathered in kumbh mela and Modi/BJP rallies and tell us in straight face that these are not super spreader events.

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#57

Post by tim333 »

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.

This is India we're talking about.

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#58

Post by cblconfederate »

ben_w wrote: post #51
cblconfederate wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they should, it's just a job, not their personal drama

Everyone’s personal drama is their job, to some extent or another. You don’t get to run a country unless you can get people emotionally invested in you doing so, because if the electorate — be it the whole nation in a democracy or the aristocrats in a monarchy — is not into you, they’ll pick someone else instead of you.

the issue with democracy is that, because it relies on popularity, it selects for self-absorbed sociopaths. Being one is essential for getting elected but a nightmare after election

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#59

Post by throaway-123123 »

acd10j wrote: post #56
voisin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those of us not close to this topic, how do you assess the veracity of OP’s statements?

Recently created handle just to defend Modi government narrative, Using other religions (read Muslim) as scapegoat in defense. Just look at the pictures of large number of people being gathered in kumbh mela and Modi/BJP rallies and tell us in straight face that these are not super spreader events.

India is a huge and complex country. The virus was not waiting for Kumbh to spread for sure, as daily life in most Indian cities operates in super spreader mode.

From a newspaper report on Mumbai Locals [1]-

"Passengers on suburban local trains in Mumbai have increased since the services were resumed for the general public on February 1. Nearly 3.7 million passengers commute everyday by the local train network on the Central and the Western Railway."

[1] https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/mumbai-news/mumbai-loc...

PS using a throwaway account ( as all Modi apologists do :-) )

Re: Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases

#60

Post by jangid »

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.

We cannot generalize here. Holi is mostly a north-Indian festival. Kumbh is for all; so there we can say that it affects everyone. But this year very few people traveled.

Also when we say "Medical systems collapsing" then we should be specific. Because there are 700+ districts and there is a different story everywhere.

My father and mother went to the community clinic at a walking distance from my house and there was no queue at all. No wait. Now on 1st of May, it is my and my wife's turn.

Post reply on HN