What is the best way for someone in the US to donate to help with the situation in India? I'm not Indian so I don't know much about charities in India but news like this is just heartbreaking and I want to do my minuscule part in helping. Thanks in advance.
You can see plenty of fundraising options at https://milaap.org/ These are verified volunteers directly working at the local level.
India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims
51–60 of 92 posts
Re: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims
#52The number of fatalities is 10x-100x more than what is published officially. Most people died at homes due to them being rural and all hospitals working at capacity. At government hospitals, you have to be tested and be covid positive to be listed as covid death. Private hospitals in rural areas simply don't send the stats back. I don't know any family in India that didn't have a death among their relatives. They sai…
Also, India had the world's largest protests by farmers protesting against removal of subsidies. https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/06/opinions/india-farmer-protest... > The number of fatalities is 10x-100x more than what is published Source?
It's a poor country and tests aren't free, that alone will give you an under count. Throw in the current crises, the positivity rate and all the other challenges of a developing nation and 10x is not at all surprising.
Accurate numbers are a privilege of wealthy nations and even they struggled.
Re: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims
#53What is the best way for someone in the US to donate to help with the situation in India? I'm not Indian so I don't know much about charities in India but news like this is just heartbreaking and I want to do my minuscule part in helping. Thanks in advance.
https://www.khalsaaid.org/ this is a good organization. Avoid donating to PM CARES FUND. It is a private entity, not a government fund, that has collected almost 2B$ and as far as I can tell had spent only 30M$ to set up a couple of oxygen plants, most of which are not functional. Another charity I would avoid is Sewa international, which is the charity arm of right wing, nationalist and militant organization RSS. In…
THIS. I won't speculate where the money goes. But this fund is held in a secret account, no authority is allowed to audit and no one is allowed to inquire where the money is being spent.
Re: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm just trying to understand how insensitive it is to comment on a thread where OP is clearly someone who has either suffered loss or has an entire network suffering loss, and then go full strong systemiser and ask for a reference. The absurdity of asking is even stronger when almost any understanding of the situation on the ground in India would mean an understanding that there is widespread and systemic problems w…
What do feeling have to do with facts. COVID has at most 1% mortality rate. It hasn't been shown to significantly increase yearly mortality rate. About the same number of people are dying as every year. The Ganges is a large river. The claim is a hyperbolic exaggeration.
However in a situation with very little in the way of actual verifiable facts, what is someone actually asking for in terms of something that will support the evidence? What is a source in this environment? And at various thresholds of that, I will give you many sources (mostly medical) that will support 1-2 orders of magnitude increase. The article itself says only 196 people died in Kanpur during a 3 week period, but there were 8,000 cremations (obviously not all covid related, and without a baseline I can't tell you where this sits, but there is an implied increase given the other statements about lack of cremation space)
I would also challenge your definition of 'significant'. In the US last year, there was a 20% increase in excess deaths (0). Having an extra 20% of humans die in your country counts, I think, as significant.
Now granted it really depends on whether you are talking about India, the US, or the rest of the world but your statement is demonstrably false - in a country with good data, there were an extra 20% of humans dying last year; in a country with terrible data with an out of control epidemic and no way for people to isolate safely, the facts are we will probably never know what the true deaths are but if you're saying (and here a couple of things don't compute) about the same number of people are dying every year (?in India? how do you know that in the absence of data? and generally death statistics take several months to become solid) and the Ganges is a large river, are these two statements logically linked? And how?
(0) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2778361
Re: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims
#55Re: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do feeling have to do with facts. COVID has at most 1% mortality rate. It hasn't been shown to significantly increase yearly mortality rate. About the same number of people are dying as every year. The Ganges is a large river. The claim is a hyperbolic exaggeration.
Feeling doesn't have anything to do with facts, as I pointed out to the other poster. However in a situation with very little in the way of actual verifiable facts, what is someone actually asking for in terms of something that will support the evidence? What is a source in this environment? And at various thresholds of that, I will give you many sources (mostly medical) that will support 1-2 orders of magnitude incr…
Re: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
The situation is quite sad, and I am happy you and your family are fine as you mentioned in your other comment. I am quite sure you can do without spreading FUD here though. If you have data to back up the 10-100x claim, please share it. There has been undercounting in most countries and India having largely poor infra you would expect it to be higher there. The data has been analysed by a lot of experts and most are…
The global death toll is 2-3x than listed not for India.
Re: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
The situation is quite sad, and I am happy you and your family are fine as you mentioned in your other comment. I am quite sure you can do without spreading FUD here though. If you have data to back up the 10-100x claim, please share it. There has been undercounting in most countries and India having largely poor infra you would expect it to be higher there. The data has been analysed by a lot of experts and most are…
Here's one state's 10x. https://thewire.in/health/not-covid-stunned-by-data-gujarat-... >> I am quite sure you can do without spreading FUD here though. With due respect, our entire country is experiencing fear, uncertainty and certainly despair. Giving voice to it is not unreasonable.
And a significant portion of the families especially low income families don't even get death certificates. There were people that died and their fatality will never be recorded anywhere anytime.
Re: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's one state's 10x. https://thewire.in/health/not-covid-stunned-by-data-gujarat-... >> I am quite sure you can do without spreading FUD here though. With due respect, our entire country is experiencing fear, uncertainty and certainly despair. Giving voice to it is not unreasonable.
> With due respect, our entire country is experiencing fear, uncertainty and certainly despair. Giving voice to it is not unreasonable. I totally respect and understand that. It is just that hyperbolic figures just lead to flame wars and I would rather not have it here. That's why I asked them to back it up with statistical analysis they are relying on. Do you have any other source other than the blog you linked? I r…
Other reports from cremations in multiple cities have been approximately similar. https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1384782984138694658?...
You're right that it isn't 10x everywhere. India as a whole is probably 3-5x, but the point that it is 10-100x in the very worst areas is also true. Some places in UP and Bihar are reporting no COVID deaths at all. People are dying of 'cough and fever'
Finally, at a pan India level, while the government refuses to count deaths accurately, it has done sero-surveys. Those have consistently shown antibodies in 25-60% of the population (before this new wave) with the higher figures reported from poorer denser areas.
As of now, even after the new wave, official figures say about 2% of our population has been infected.
Re: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims
#60https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
It’s clear that the official numbers are almost an order of magnitude out vs countries that do more testing (e.g. US).
If you take the official global average death rate of 2% and apply it to India’s case count you’ll get roughly double the number of officially reported deaths.
The news coming out of India is tragic and given the lack of infrastructure in rural areas and the shortage of medical supplies we keep hearing about the “1 order magnitude out” is starting to look like a lower bound.