Fellow Indian here who's been tracking this since Feb.
Highlights of what I think are the biggest risk: The number of tests being performed in India are 20x less than most other countries, though it has ramped up in the past few weeks, there was a free flow of international travel till then.
My fear is that because the virus is asymptomatic, there are a lot of active carriers freely moving around. Most companies in India also find WFH an alien concept, even in tech, so it seems like most people still have to go to work.
I believe that the urban density in India is too high to stop something like this even from a lockdown. Also the lockdown would only help the middle class, there is a large section of urban poor that depend on daily wage that can't stop working. They depend on this money for food and shelter.
Overall, the avalanche is imminent, and I believe that the situation could be dire in the cities.
As tests ramp up the true impact will be seen but I fear that we'll always be behind the curve on this because of the difficulty of mobilizing testing at such scales.
The only way we can avoid large scale impact is if the virus finds it hard to survive in the heat, now that summer is in. Temperatures are rising but there is no consensus on whether that hinders the spread.
>The only way we can avoid large scale impact is if the virus finds it hard to survive in the heat
Personally, I'm hoping against hope that the heat really does slow this virus down. I don't really have much faith in the policies that the various developed nations have enacted to deal with this particular threat. Not really the fault of the leaders, This situation's just something that has not been seen previously. No experience with it at all. I do think governments are emphasizing the wrong things and not being comprehensive. But so are the people. We're buying toilet paper, but leaving soap on the shelves? But overall, governments at least seem to concede it is a threat at this point.
If the heat won't help us? We're in trouble. If India's heat doesn't slow it down, we're gonna be living with this virus for a good long time. Everyone should be rooting for India and Africa at this point. Cut off the rest of the world from those two places so that we can see if the spread is, at least, impaired a little by the heat or the humidity.
To add to this the UP govt is planning an "Ayodhya Ram Navami Mela"(1) where millons of people will be gathering soon. They plan to tackle this by using 100k masks, 4,000 litres of sanitiser.
> On Monday, the CMO cited the chief minister’s advice against large gatherings to say they didn’t have “infrastructure to screen and hand out masks to 5 lakh people”.
For anyone interested, I did some quick math and it seems like it'd be about two tablespoons of hand sanitizer per person (500k people / 4000 litres).
It’s somewhat hard to believe that a country with a population of almost 1.4 billion, has only 137 cases and 3 deaths. It’s more likely they have not been diagnosing and tracking the actual cases out there.
I think the timeline of when different countries started seeing it pop up (after China) has been driven by how commonly those places are travelled to by people from outside of them. Global urban centers. Africa, for example, (I think) still has very few cases.
Even within the U.S., the map very clearly highlights frequently-travelled urban centers (California and New York first, followed by Washington/Oregon, then Texas, Florida, etc.). It looks like the map of the Democrat/Republican leaning for different states.
It isn't hard to believe. We have clinics and hospitals pretty much everywhere except for remotest of villages. And Coronavirus is not something that can go undetected for a long time (incubation period is 5 days from what I have read). If there are more cases it will come to the fore. It cannot be hidden. India is a democracy and not an authoritarian regime like China. You can't hide something as serious as this for long. If you want to believe propaganda that is a different story altogether.
Quoting the World Health Organization's representative to India (Henk Bekedam):
"“The commitment from the Indian government and the Prime Minister’s Office has been enormous, very impressive. It is one of the reasons why India is still doing quite well. I am very impressed that everyone has been mobilised,” Henk Bekedam, WHO’s representative to India, was quoted as saying by news agency ANI" [1]
We have had cases of Japanese Encephalitis blowing up just a few years ago in Uttar Pradesh. The Government tackled that by immunizing millions of children in the State [2] and [3]. Can India handle this epidemic? Absolutely yes. From all evidence available publicly India is handling it way better than most countries are as of now.
One of the key challenges for India will also be to fight the spread of misinformation through WhatsApp and Facebook. There is false information and unproven remedies being circulated on WhatsApp and people blindly believe what gets forwarded to them giving them a false sense of security.
People using unproven remedies is not really a problem. It does not help but it mostly does not hurt either. I am moderator for super large fb groups and over dozens of whataspp groups and I find them to be a boon in the moments of crisis. We have been able ot convince people of its seriouseness, got marriages to be cancelled and religious ceremonies to be postponed.
Do we know if the virus does worse in warmer climates? I ask because I'm still amazed that the numbers in south east asia are so low, Thailand and Vietnam had huge amounts of Chinese tourists over Chinese new year and yet case wise they seem really low. Whereas europe which has a much colder climate right now is doing much worse.
I've read several articles on this over the last few days. The consensus is that we don't know yet if heat and/or humidity reduce transmission of Covid-19 in any meaningful way. But it is certainly possible it will be suppressed in warmer or more humid weather as is the case for many similar viruses.
It's probable that the virus transmits less readily in warmer and wetter places. By how much however, is a key question. Unless the R0 becomes less than zero, then countries still should take precautions to control their outbreaks, especially in densely populated cities.
I've heard they aren't really testing, from a Malaysian who has been following it. And most of the cases verified there are expats. Haven't done my own research though, so grain of salt.
I spoke to a few folks in India, and seems like the majority are on some form of maintenance dose of chroloquine from a getting malaria in the last 6-8 months. I hear this is pretty common practice there.
And not just OTC, but handed out for free and in large quantities at govt hospitals.
It is my understanding that chloroquine isn't exactly elixir to the already ailing elders. So, the section of population that's the most vulnerable is the one that simply can't take in doses of chloroquine without worrying about grave side-effects.
If there were really a lot of hidden cases I would have expected a lot more deaths - especially considering Corona mostly affects people in urban areas where hospital access is decent. That being not the case, either there is not too much spread or Indians are somehow immune to most COVID19 effects.
> After the medical team reached the house of the woman’s parents, her father, a railway engineer, refused to cooperate with us and lied that his daughter had left for Bengaluru. But after the district magistrate’s intervention, we were able to gain access to their house and took all the nine family members to the district hospital for screening."
Wow. Just wow. What do you have to be thinking to come to the conclusion that "screw everybody, we'll just spread the illness" is your decision? At some point, isn't it attempted murder?
Also, shame on that site for hijacking the copy functionality.
i will call it bullshit. western media is just pulling up conspiracies against india so that they can divert their problem towards india. this is the same trick pakistan uses when army over there gains extra power or does some shady shit.
[+] [-] sumgame|6 years ago|reply
Highlights of what I think are the biggest risk: The number of tests being performed in India are 20x less than most other countries, though it has ramped up in the past few weeks, there was a free flow of international travel till then.
My fear is that because the virus is asymptomatic, there are a lot of active carriers freely moving around. Most companies in India also find WFH an alien concept, even in tech, so it seems like most people still have to go to work.
I believe that the urban density in India is too high to stop something like this even from a lockdown. Also the lockdown would only help the middle class, there is a large section of urban poor that depend on daily wage that can't stop working. They depend on this money for food and shelter.
Overall, the avalanche is imminent, and I believe that the situation could be dire in the cities.
As tests ramp up the true impact will be seen but I fear that we'll always be behind the curve on this because of the difficulty of mobilizing testing at such scales.
The only way we can avoid large scale impact is if the virus finds it hard to survive in the heat, now that summer is in. Temperatures are rising but there is no consensus on whether that hinders the spread.
[+] [-] bilbo0s|6 years ago|reply
Personally, I'm hoping against hope that the heat really does slow this virus down. I don't really have much faith in the policies that the various developed nations have enacted to deal with this particular threat. Not really the fault of the leaders, This situation's just something that has not been seen previously. No experience with it at all. I do think governments are emphasizing the wrong things and not being comprehensive. But so are the people. We're buying toilet paper, but leaving soap on the shelves? But overall, governments at least seem to concede it is a threat at this point.
If the heat won't help us? We're in trouble. If India's heat doesn't slow it down, we're gonna be living with this virus for a good long time. Everyone should be rooting for India and Africa at this point. Cut off the rest of the world from those two places so that we can see if the spread is, at least, impaired a little by the heat or the humidity.
[+] [-] superasn|6 years ago|reply
(1) https://theprint.in/india/governance/despite-coronavirus-lak...
[+] [-] Osmium|6 years ago|reply
For anyone interested, I did some quick math and it seems like it'd be about two tablespoons of hand sanitizer per person (500k people / 4000 litres).
[+] [-] ISL|6 years ago|reply
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati...
It is very hard to believe that there is no local transmission, and very easy to believe that any covid-19 news there is suppressed.
[+] [-] high_pathetic|6 years ago|reply
Today's numbers are 114 total. They have started testing people with symptoms who had immediate contact with the infected..
[+] [-] dr_|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _bxg1|6 years ago|reply
Even within the U.S., the map very clearly highlights frequently-travelled urban centers (California and New York first, followed by Washington/Oregon, then Texas, Florida, etc.). It looks like the map of the Democrat/Republican leaning for different states.
[+] [-] mcsb4|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shripadk|6 years ago|reply
Quoting the World Health Organization's representative to India (Henk Bekedam):
"“The commitment from the Indian government and the Prime Minister’s Office has been enormous, very impressive. It is one of the reasons why India is still doing quite well. I am very impressed that everyone has been mobilised,” Henk Bekedam, WHO’s representative to India, was quoted as saying by news agency ANI" [1]
We have had cases of Japanese Encephalitis blowing up just a few years ago in Uttar Pradesh. The Government tackled that by immunizing millions of children in the State [2] and [3]. Can India handle this epidemic? Absolutely yes. From all evidence available publicly India is handling it way better than most countries are as of now.
[1]: https://www.freepressjournal.in/india/very-impressed-with-in...
[2]: https://www.financialexpress.com/india-news/big-shout-out-to...
[3]: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/encephalitis-in-uttar...
[+] [-] Bhilai|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KorematsuFred|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dageshi|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nwallin|6 years ago|reply
MERS, which is related to COVID, is endemic in the Middle East, doesn't seem to be seasonal.
People shouldn't make preparations based on the idea that this will go away in the summer.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] standardUser|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Leary|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ISL|6 years ago|reply
It is clear that humidity has an influence, and temperature may have an influence.
I am hopeful that the tropical nations of the world will be spared the worst of this particular disease, but only time will tell.
[+] [-] daxfohl|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robertpelloni|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pkaye|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bushido|6 years ago|reply
And not just OTC, but handed out for free and in large quantities at govt hospitals.
I am eager to see this data as well.
[+] [-] thorwasdfasdf|6 years ago|reply
that's pretty darn encouraging, considering most places haven't gotten serious until recently.
[+] [-] Tomminn|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sandGorgon|6 years ago|reply
India is after all the generics manufacturing capital of the world. We can churn this stuff out by the billions.
Fingers crossed.
[+] [-] ignoramous|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hiyer|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yumraj|6 years ago|reply
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/agra/techie-had-not...
In addition India has a huge population with hypertension, who are on ACE inhibitors or ARBs, and diabetes.
[+] [-] RHSeeger|6 years ago|reply
Wow. Just wow. What do you have to be thinking to come to the conclusion that "screw everybody, we'll just spread the illness" is your decision? At some point, isn't it attempted murder?
Also, shame on that site for hijacking the copy functionality.
[+] [-] vuln|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] redpillor|6 years ago|reply