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India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims

bbc.com

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Re: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims

#71

Post by hiyer »

ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #8

The 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…

> Modi run his private circus of his kumbh mela and election rallies.

In terms of number of cases the worst affected are Karnataka and Maharashtra[0] which had neither Kumbh Mela nor election rallies. Neither did other badly affected states like Delhi. Kumbh Mela in fact started when the "second wave" was already well entrenched.

Also, long after Kumbh Mela was truncated and the election rallies got over - and even at the height of the second wave - people were still blowing social distancing norms to smithereens at farmers rallies [1] and Ramzan/Eid celebrations[2].

0. https://www.covid19india.org/

1. https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/punjab/covid-norms-go-for-...

2. https://theprint.in/health/covid-protocols-up-in-the-air-in-...

Re: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims

#73

Post by dukeofdoom »

Exmoor wrote: post #69
dukeofdoom wrote: post #37

Earlier 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.

> What do feeling have to do with facts. COVID has at most 1% mortality rate. The basis for this is data from places with at least some level of health care. From the reports I'm hearing, a lot of India's rural population is not making it medical care. Also, worth mentioning that 1% of India's population is 13.8 million people.

1% of those that get the disease. Not everyone. I would expect the average Indian to fare better than the average American due to the population being younger. Some stats on age and comorbidities.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-se...

Re: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims

#74

Post by yashness »

hangonhn wrote: post #4

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.

Contrary to what others say of not donating to PM CARES, I can fairly sense their hatred towards current ruling party from their other comments, they have no basis of proving what they are saying. It's the outcome of social media & left-wing news agencies brainwashing them. I bet they haven't tried themselves checking for RTI information or any of that sort of information for PM-CARES. Just speculation from half-baked knowledge from media.

The options given in alternative are no doubt great, I'd personally vouch for Akshaypatra mission.

Re: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims

#75

Post by tasuki »

nandhinianand wrote: post #70
apoorvagk wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know any family in India that didn't have a death among their relatives. I am sorry for the losses you and your friends have experienced. I came here to provide a contrarian view just so that the readers here do not get a skewed view of what is going on. I agree with you that the actual deaths are at least 10X and possibly 100X more than the official numbers. But nobody in my family has been tested positive…

There's a big difference in prevalence/spread of covid across economic classes. Without knowing which one you belong to, this is not a great data point.

It is a good data point.

Ganeshkrishnan said he didn't know any family in India that didn't have a death among their relatives. He didn't say such families didn't exist, just that he didn't know any. It is valuable to provide information that such families do exist.

Re: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims

#76

Post by robbiep »

aww_dang wrote: post #61
robbiep wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything regarding COVID is political which is absurd. I'm not indian or have any indian family but I am a Doctor and most of my lines of data come from the medical community reporting back

Most things can be interpreted politically. That doesn't mean "here's why I blame COVID on my political opponents, AKA the evil-doers", is an interesting or useful start to a discussion. If it is, the counterpoint about protests is equally valid.

Did I or have I done that? I have no political skin in the game here

Re: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims

#77

Post by robbiep »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #56
robbiep wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Since COVID takes out mostly old people with multiple life threatening conditions. It seems to have replaced the flu. So not much impact on overall yearly mortality rate.

This is an absurd take on it.

What you say is 'Mostly' true - in a bad flu season the medical community has a name for it, clearing out the dead wood.

But 'Mostly', when scaled to really large numbers, is still a scarily large number. And Mostly, in this instance, is still a long way from the truth.

First, there is a significantly increased risk of dying beyond the first 30 days of illness (ie when many people have recovered) [0]

Beyond the first 30 days of illness, individuals with COVID-19 had an increased risk of death (hazard ratio of 1.59 (1.46–1.73)). We also estimated the adjusted excess burden of death due to COVID-19 per 1,000 persons at 6 months on the basis of the difference between the estimated incidence rate in individuals with COVID-19 and all VHA users. The excess death was estimated at 8.39 (7.09–9.58) per 1,000 patients with COVID-19 at 6 months. Individuals with COVID-19 had a higher risk of requiring outpatient care (hazard ratio of 1.20 (1.19–1.21)), at an excess burden of 33.22 (30.89–35.58; all excess burdens are given per 1,000 patients with COVID-19 at 6 months) and at a greater frequency of 0.47 (0.44–0.49) additional encounters every 30 days

Secondly, it is not just death that is a concern (and again i'll stress that really, a lot of young people, through sheer weight of numbers, are dying of this. Huge number of infection, huge number of death, even at [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03553-9

Re: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims

#78

Post by aww_dang »

robbiep wrote: post #76
aww_dang wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most things can be interpreted politically. That doesn't mean "here's why I blame COVID on my political opponents, AKA the evil-doers", is an interesting or useful start to a discussion. If it is, the counterpoint about protests is equally valid.

Did I or have I done that? I have no political skin in the game here

Nor do I. I'm observing that the entire thread is political. The top post starts with a political slight. Please do not read my comment as accusatory.

Re: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims

#79

Post by Clewza313 »

ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #29
apoorvagk wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know any family in India that didn't have a death among their relatives. I am sorry for the losses you and your friends have experienced. I came here to provide a contrarian view just so that the readers here do not get a skewed view of what is going on. I agree with you that the actual deaths are at least 10X and possibly 100X more than the official numbers. But nobody in my family has been tested positive…

>But nobody in my family has been tested positive with COVID-19 or died of COVID-19 or any other illness in the last 2 years. My immediate family could quarantine because we are relatively well off. We can order online and most of our jobs are tech as well. Other friends and families including doctors can't afford to stay locked down. The first wave was withering down, life was returning back to normal. All modi had…

It's even worse than that: the Kumbh Mela was organized one year earlier than it would normally be, and Modi/BJP are partly responsible for that.

Re: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims

#80

Post by peanutz454 »

truth_ wrote: post #39
peanutz454 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the list. Its just me, but I would stay away from political or religious funds.

I am irreligious and athiest. But I still trust Ramakrishna Mission and I think you can specify that you don't want your money spent on religious activities. [0]: https://www.telegraphindia.com/west-bengal/calcutta/ramakris... [1]: https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/national/hero-moto... [2]: https://theshillongtimes.com/2021/05/20/rkm-sohra-endeavours... [3]: https://m.timesofindia.com/city/kolkata/60-bed-saf…

Thanks again for coming back to reply. Just like my investments, I and my partner try to diversify my donations. We will donate to a few of them.
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