[HN Gopher] India's second wave
___________________________________________________________________
India's second wave
Author : DanBC
Score : 253 points
Date : 2021-04-21 08:33 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ft.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ft.com)
| boyadjian wrote:
| But why is it much worse ? Because of the pandemic, or because of
| the lockdowns ?
| [deleted]
| mrow84 wrote:
| How would the lockdowns have made it worse? Could they have
| produced the exponential growth in cases and deaths that are
| currently observed in the official data?
| collyw wrote:
| One theory is about relative movement of old and young.
| Normal situation, young heathy people move around a lot more
| than the elderly, contract the virus get immune.
|
| With lockdown everyone is restricted and old and young go to
| the supermarket and back. As such the elderly are exposed at
| a higher rate before any level of herd immunity is reached.
| boyadjian wrote:
| I quote qart: "Lockdowns hurt poor people very badly; they
| need to earn to survive."
| mrow84 wrote:
| The title of the piece is "'It is much worse this time':
| India's devastating second wave". Given that the discussion
| is of the exponential increases in both cases and deaths,
| it seems clear that the "it" in the title refers to "the
| pandemic", not "life in general".
|
| My response followed this interpretation, despite the
| wording of your questions - clearly I should have been more
| explicit: "How would the lockdowns have made _the pandemic_
| worse? "
| boyadjian wrote:
| I do not say that the lockdowns make the pandemic worse,
| I say that the lockdowns make life of people worse. The
| mass media are making a great confusion, between
| "pandemic" and "life in general", and so do people, and
| that's what I am specifically criticizing.
| mrow84 wrote:
| You are certainly right, the lockdowns do make the lives
| of most people worse, some significantly more so than
| others.
|
| The pandemic, however, directly threatens people's lives.
| There have been 33,815 confirmed covid deaths in India
| since the start of the year, and 3 million around the
| world since the beginning of the pandemic. I think it is
| unrealistic to suggest that there have been anything
| remotely like that number attributable to lockdown over
| those timeframes.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/VYm6A
| abanayev wrote:
| Thank you. I don't understand why people continue to post
| paywalled content on HN.
| dang wrote:
| If there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post
| workarounds in the thread.
|
| This is in the FAQ at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html and there's more
| explanation here:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.
| ..
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989
| sss111 wrote:
| I'm suprised, I know you are the mod, but do you read all
| comments posted on HN? :D
| corty wrote:
| Paywall.
| ls15 wrote:
| https://archive.is/VYm6A
| molsson wrote:
| It would be nice if the web somehow filtered out links that one
| had decided to not pay for.
| voisin wrote:
| Seems like a worthwhile Chrome extension. Or to replace all
| paywall links with the internet archive link?
| the_other wrote:
| No it wouldn't.
| mellosouls wrote:
| HN Guidelines are links should not be submitted if there is
| not a freely available version, or at least the wording is
| "It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have
| workarounds", which implies that.
|
| It would be nice if OPs took more effort to post the non-
| paywalled alternative (in addition to the original) to avoid
| these discussions and complaints. Yes, I am aware complaining
| about paywalls is OT.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
| dang wrote:
| If there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post
| workarounds in the thread.
|
| This is in the FAQ at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
| and there's more explanation here:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989
| johnohara wrote:
| Based on over a year's worth of global data, it is reasonable to
| highly correlate confirmed positive infections with death counts,
| with only the degree varying from 2% to 6%.
|
| Using "official" numbers alone, and the exponential growth they
| have exhibited in the past week, it is impossible to deny that an
| unmitigated disaster is unfolding before our eyes in India.
|
| Speculate and blame all you want, the situation is deadlier and
| more real than we have seen globally thus far.
|
| It seems to me the most appropriate reaction is to be aghast, and
| ask "How can I help?"
| devdas wrote:
| Shipping vaccines and materials needed for vaccine manufacture
| would be a good start.
|
| Reversing this would be good too.
| https://www.democracynow.org/2021/3/11/rich_countries_block_...
| johnohara wrote:
| Agree. It's disappointing that embargoes on exporting vaccine
| materials to a country, who under normal circumstances
| produces so much vaccine for the world, are a matter of
| emergency use policy.
| rataata_jr wrote:
| Not leading to deaths, but just increasing case numbers, that is
| good news.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| How reliable are the numbers coming out of India? Test
| positivity rates of 15% would suggest under-reporting / under-
| testing.
| thecleaner wrote:
| What are you talking about ? A random sample with positivity
| rate of 20percent would indicate one in 5 has covid. Why are
| you posting such conspiratorial comments with a throwaway
| account ?
| dang wrote:
| Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN?
| You've been doing it repeatedly and we ban such accounts.
|
| Please don't attack fellow users and please omit swipes
| like "What are you talking about" from your comments here.
| If another comment is wrong, it suffices to reply with
| accurate information. Actually it's much more credible that
| way. If you toss in gratuitous swipes, you discredit the
| accurate information you're (by hypothesis) adding, which
| is bad for the truth.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| thecleaner wrote:
| Sure. Apologies.
| usueye wrote:
| It is under reported: https://scroll.in/article/992217/as-
| the-dead-pile-up-in-guja...
| https://thewire.in/government/ghaziabad-agra-jhansi-
| bareilly...
|
| This is either to save the image of state or central govt.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It's ignorant to maintain the position not dying from it is
| enough to not give a shit about it. It's still a crippling
| disease that can cause organ scarring and long-term illness,
| and letting it run free provides it with a breeding ground to
| provide new variants.
|
| I mean the past year and a half have been a real life version
| of Plague Inc; the 'contagion' marker and mutations have been
| played with so far, the 'deadliness' factor may mutate next.
| dang wrote:
| " _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation
| of what someone says, not a weaker one that 's easier to
| criticize. Assume good faith._"
|
| " _When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of
| calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be
| shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3._'"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| collyw wrote:
| How can you say it causes long term damage when it has barely
| been around for a year?
| kanche wrote:
| Say when one gets pneumonia during covid can be quite sure
| that it will afflict long term issues on the lung
| functioning.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Some of us having serious lingering symptoms.
|
| I was on blood thinners before. Since covid my blood clots
| far more quickly now. I can't miss any doses of blood
| thinner or symptoms start up fast.
| phnofive wrote:
| Deaths have crossed 1700 per day, also a record high.
| gulabjamuns wrote:
| 2023 deaths is the figure of April 20th.
| mulvya wrote:
| The CFR in Mumbai, so far, is less than half of the first
| wave. But due to the rapid rise in cases (elsewhere; Mumbai
| appears to have peaked on 7 Apr), there's a crunch in beds
| and especially oxygen.
| Hiopl wrote:
| That's always been the biggest fear with Covid, so that's
| not unexpected. Long ICU durations, lack of sufficient ICU
| spots and staff, high infection rate, low case fatality
| rate still means it can quickly overwhelm hospitals and
| lead to much higher rates of death overall.
|
| People crying "it's just a flu" were always missing the
| point.
| FriendlyNormie wrote:
| You'd look good with blood gushing out of the stump on
| your neck where your head used to be.
| mulvya wrote:
| But there is another factor, only recently mentioned in
| Indian media.
|
| The fear factor causes many of those with means to insist
| on hospitalization. This article talks about it in the
| context of celebs [1] but I've seen it among my relatives
| as well where healthy young adults with moderate/high Ct
| values are admitted on insistence of their parents or
| themselves.
|
| I read similar reporting about self-arranged oxygen use
| as well.
|
| [1]: https://www.timesnownews.com/mumbai/article/mumbai-
| film-star...
| Hiopl wrote:
| That's interesting, thanks. Makes me wonder how
| widespread it is, but when spots are scarce and every bed
| counts, it's awful all the same.
|
| Also ties back into the idea that governments need to act
| earlier than might seem necessary.
| Clewza313 wrote:
| Which is a bit odd, since outside a few elite private
| institutions, Indian hospitals are dire and the same
| media regularly carries horror stories of rooms full of
| corpses etc.
| vondro wrote:
| Just a bit of context, Poland, a nation of 38M, sees death
| count of 500-1000 per day during the last wave.
|
| It's likely the real number is higher than 1700 for such a
| huge nation as India.
| capybara_2020 wrote:
| It is putting people into a very precarious financial
| situation. I know more that a few people who have to borrow a
| lot of money when their loved ones ended up in hospital and the
| long term effects are unknown with people being put in the ICU
| with a 70% loss in lung function. And then being discharged
| either because they can no longer afford to pay or because they
| test negative for Covid but still have a host of heath issues.
| makomk wrote:
| Do we even know how many deaths it's leading to? From the
| article: "A Financial Times analysis also points to under-
| reporting of deaths. Local news reports for seven districts
| across the states of Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and
| Bihar show that while at least 1,833 people are known to have
| died of Covid-19 in recent days, based mainly on cremations,
| only 228 have been officially reported. In the Jamnagar
| district in Gujarat, 100 people died of Covid-19 but only one
| Covid death was reported."
| _Microft wrote:
| People do not get sick and die on the same day from Covid.
| Numbers of deaths lag by a few weeks. The worst is yet to come
| :(
| hugh-avherald wrote:
| Daily deaths are at a record high. Higher than mid last year
| detaro wrote:
| Yes, that's what our politicians here in Germany also said. And
| now they don't get why people are mad at them, who could have
| known that the thing hospitals, the state epidemic institute
| and other experts warned about would actually happen, and its
| totally unfair to blame them for needless deaths!
| mrow84 wrote:
| Deaths are clearly exponentially increasing:
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...
| collyw wrote:
| It's following a gompertz curve like every other country.
| mrow84 wrote:
| The progression of deaths [0] is patently nothing like a
| Gompertz curve. It is bounded, of course, which is probably
| your point, but we are currently in a growth phase that is
| well modelled by an exponential curve. The Gompertz adds
| nothing at this stage, and does not accurately represent
| the periods of slowing that have already been experienced,
| nor the subsequent accelerations.
|
| That the population is finite is, I think we can all agree,
| well understood. It is, however, important to be clear
| about the dangers of exponential disease growth when only
| ~1% of a population currently has that disease and the CFR
| is ~1%. For any sizeable fraction of 1.3 billion that
| translates to a large number of people.
|
| [0] https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-
| explor...
| christophilus wrote:
| Am I reading that correctly? The exponential spike represents
| approximately 1.5 deaths in a million?
| mrow84 wrote:
| Correct, 2,023 people on the 20th April.
| Kiraak wrote:
| Lock down is needed in India for lot of the Morons in our country
| who were taking things so lightly after the first wave we all
| deserve the lock down so we can learn a hard lesson, and stupid
| people die of covid19.
|
| The second wave is all because of the central & State Govt and
| people's foolishness & ignorance. Unfortunately its because of
| our stupidity its the people of the lower income class have to
| suffer the most, the daily wage miggrants & people who are
| contract employees. If only all the organizations took all the
| right steps we wouldnt have been in this situation. The entire
| govt mechanism failed from top to the grassroot level, local
| muncipalities did not bother and neither the people.
|
| I hope at least this time, we all learn the lesson.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| I expressed a similar opinion while discussing with my friends.
| Indians don't get a nuanced message. Given the sheer size of
| Indian (mostly uncivilized) population and its vast geography
| it's close to impossible to have a middle ground measure. The
| message from the top must be crystal clear and enforced with
| iron hammer. If the message/measure contains even an iota of
| nuance it'll get lost among 1.3B people. If that's not enough
| we have information pathways (Twitter/FB/WA) that are
| particularly optimized to spread misinformation at the speed of
| light.
|
| Even when it was 100% evident that the second wave was fully on
| politicians conducted campaigning rallies, allowed religious
| gathering of millions, movie halls were running at 100% and so
| on. The time to contain was then; now it's all about damange
| control and pray.
| dang wrote:
| I'm sure you're well-intentioned, but please don't call names
| in comments here, no matter how strongly you feel about a
| topic. It degrades discussion, and is against the site rules
| for that reason:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
| freddealmeida wrote:
| I honestly don't think this is clearly understood by the
| authorities and they are causing more harm than good. We don't
| really yet understand Covid or the impact of specific policies
| like lockdowns, lack of other health inducing activities
| (exercise, essential vitamins, genetics, food quality, etc). More
| over, Stanford
| (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7680614/) has shown
| masks don't work. Lockdowns probably have a deleterious affect
| and we have yet to isolate and purify the Covid19 virus (CDC is
| being sued on this at the moment).
|
| This in my opinion is data manipulation to push an agenda. India
| is probably fine. I call bullshit
| admp wrote:
| The article you've linked to doesn't appear credible.
|
| https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-629043235973
| Smashure wrote:
| That is not "showing masks don't work". That's just some
| hypothesis of an individual and he is mistaken on multiple
| premises.
| univalent wrote:
| Really worried for my parents and other relatives. They are being
| as safe as possible but the virus is everywhere now and not sure
| if they will be able to avoid it. What a tragedy that people just
| didn't mask up and avoid gatherings when the vaccines were so
| close.
| [deleted]
| throwaway4good wrote:
| It is sadly predictable that the pandemic would end up becoming a
| permanent source of havoc in less developed part of the world,
| even as it comes under control in the west. This will for certain
| be with us for many years to come and will further distort the
| difference between rich and poor. Not at least helped by the
| nationalism in the west in form of export controls and patents.
| corty wrote:
| Well, a source of havoc, maybe. But one among many, there is
| still Malaria, Tuberculosis, Dengue Fever, Ebola, HIV. All with
| far more significant consequences. That we are worrying as much
| about Corona as we do in the West is a consequence of those
| ailments being (mostly) irrelevant here.
| _djo_ wrote:
| This is inaccurate. COVID-19 has been far deadlier than any
| of those already-devastating existing diseases and conditions
| in places like India, South Africa, and Brazil.
|
| In South Africa for instance, COVID-19 killed more people in
| 2020 than HIV/AIDS or TB.
| corty wrote:
| That those diseases have a lower death-count today is a
| consequence of the havoc they have brought historically and
| of the current disruption they cause in isolating the
| infected, vaccinations, necessary medications and hospital
| beds, etc.
|
| In all likelyhood COVID-19 will go the way of the spanish
| flu (with or without vaccination only changes the time it
| takes) and become less of a problem due to partial immunity
| in the population. Most children will get it once, after
| which any reinfection by a similar strain will be mostly
| harmless.
|
| So COVID-19 will maybe continue to be a problem for 3 or 4
| years, but after that we will still be stuck with HIV, TB
| and others, where the outlook is not so rosy.
| vondro wrote:
| Isn't HIV mostly a solved problem nowadays? Genuine
| question.
| corty wrote:
| Only in more developed countries where your medical
| insurance pays the bills. And even there it can wreak
| havoc on the public health insurance system due to the
| excessive cost of keeping HIV-positives alive.
|
| Generally, HIV is "solved" by a lifelong treatment with
| antiretrovirals. Those are not free of side-effects, very
| expensive and not available everywhere. In many places in
| less-developed countries, antiretrovirals are simply
| unaffordable for those affected. And even if they are
| affordable, the recurrent cost of the drugs keeps them in
| a lifelong state of poverty and dependency. Society as a
| whole may finance those drugs, but at the cost of other
| necessary things of course. Also, some countries try to
| produce those drugs themselves on the cheap, getting them
| into hot water with the western patent lobby and
| preventing trade agreements and the like, damaging their
| economy.
|
| And the epidemic itself is still ongoing, sometimes even
| fueled by infected people no longer caring, due to the
| availability of antiretrovirals that render AIDS
| "harmless".
|
| All in all, HIV is still spreading, is still not cured,
| treatment is problematic and it still wreaks havoc. Maybe
| only a little less.
| Clewza313 wrote:
| HIV, malaria, and many other diseases endemic to the third
| world target people in the prime of life, wreaking havoc on
| families. By contrast, most (not all, but most) deaths from
| COVID are the elderly.
|
| Any mention of this tends to bring on "how dare you say one
| life is more valuable than another" downvotes, but since
| this thread is considering economic impact, it's a relevant
| factor.
| collyw wrote:
| Personally I see a teenage suicide as a result of
| lockdown far more tragic than an 83 year old death from
| covid (that's the average age of Covid death in the UK.
| The average age of death in the UK is 82). 60+ years of
| life lost versus a maybe 2 or 3.
| adrianN wrote:
| How do you weigh thirty year olds that can't work or take
| care of their kids because they have chronic fatigue
| after Covid? About 10% of the milder cases still aren't
| fully recovered after six months. About 10% of those
| suffer from chronic fatigue.
| corty wrote:
| Even so, preliminary numbers where available seem to show
| the suicide rate to be falling. So in the loss-of-years
| calculation, all is quite fine actually...
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| https://www.politico.com/states/new-
| jersey/story/2020/08/13/...
| InitialLastName wrote:
| New rule for news consumption: stories that present poll
| results for a period without a baseline for comparison
| are trying to mislead you. What portion of people between
| 18-24 contemplate suicide in a given year? Turn to
| substance use to cope with stress?
|
| I know that I lived my life from 18-24 without any global
| pandemic lockdowns and both "contemplated" suicide at
| different points and used substances to cope with stress.
| I'd assume many others did as well.
|
| Given that we know suicides didn't go up in 2020 the way
| the fearmongers said they would (they went down), what
| are you arguing for?
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| To be pedantic, the remaining life expectancy if an 82
| year old in UK in 2019 was 7.5 years.
|
| https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommu
| nit...
|
| And of course, cumulatively many more "life years" would
| be lost in a no-lockdown world.
|
| But the real tragedy is you thinking stopping a real,
| deadly disease that affects millions of people isn't
| worth it because of a completely preventable death.
| collyw wrote:
| That's without taking into account other factors such as
| comorbidities.
|
| Sebastian Rushworth did an interesting article on this,
| pointing out that it is likely wrong.
|
| https://sebastianrushworth.com/2020/11/29/how-many-years-
| of-...
| not2b wrote:
| Stop with the suicide myth. The suicide rate actually
| _decreased_ during the Covid pandemic. People are not
| killing themselves at greater rates because of lockdown.
| not2b wrote:
| For whoever downvoted this, here's a reference:
|
| https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-suicides-have-
| dec...
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "By contrast, most (not all, but most) deaths from COVID
| are the elderly."
|
| In the developed world. Are you sure that this is true in
| Africa?
|
| Because if someone already has HIV or TBC, I can imagine
| Covid giving him the final push, even though the patient
| is only 35.
| _djo_ wrote:
| You're assuming developed world demographics in your
| answer, which isn't accurate for countries like South
| Africa with relatively young populations.
|
| Fully one fifth of South Africa's COVID-19 deaths were in
| the 50-59 age bracket, which includes many key
| experienced and highly-skilled personnel.
|
| Another ten percent were between 40 and 49.
|
| Sure, 44% of those who died were 60+ but to assume that
| had less economic impact is also incorrect: In the most
| hard-hit areas many of the primary caregivers for
| children are in that age group as grandparents who were
| forced to care for their grandchildren after AIDS wiped
| out so many of their children. COVID-19 has now left many
| kids double-orphaned, first with the deaths of their
| parents from AIDS and now the deaths of their
| grandparents from COVID-19.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Your assertion lacks nuance
|
| TB, AIDs and poor sanitation are killers, and more deadly.
|
| _but_ with the exception of a cholera outbreak, they are
| chronic. That is, take a long time.
|
| Covid is acute and causes services to be overwhelmed, which
| causes higher mortality for everyone.
| wiz21c wrote:
| > less developed
|
| What do you mean by "less developed" ? Those people have been
| with us on earth for the very same period of time as any other
| human. So they have been developing themselves culturally,
| economically, whatever-ally as much as any other human.
| [deleted]
| namanaggarwal wrote:
| I think OP meant less developed countries and not less
| developed people
| tim333 wrote:
| >Not at least helped by the nationalism in the west in form of
| export controls and patents.
|
| In India's case it was one of the first places to be licensed
| to make the AstraZenca vaccine, I think at no cost. The Serum
| Institute there, the world's largest vaccine producer, was the
| first place to start producing vaccine in quantity. I'm not
| sure you can really blame the west here. Though recently the US
| have been blocking supplies which I hope is a temporary glitch.
| kjakm wrote:
| It's not exactly under control in the west yet either. Mainland
| Europe seems to be going through a pretty serious third wave.
| Deukhoofd wrote:
| Third wave? The Netherlands never really left the second one.
| Tepix wrote:
| Looking at
| https://coronadashboard.government.nl/landelijk/positief-
| get... i'd say the first wave didn't really happen in the
| Netherlands, there was a wave peaking on Oct 30th, next one
| Dec 19th and the current one is still growing after going
| through a low on Feb 9th 2021.
| drsim wrote:
| With the borders shut, all European countries are
| experiencing it quite differently. Here in Denmark we dodged
| the third wave and are now easing restrictions.
| refurb wrote:
| Canada is being ravaged by it right now. Some of the worst
| numbers since it began. We're talking 60x the cases from
| October (BC). Not sure if it's the reason why but after the
| 2nd wave started to burn out they opened up quite quickly. I
| think people got complacent.
| collyw wrote:
| We have had a fourth wave hyped up here in Spain. Small
| ripple would be more accurate.
| esperent wrote:
| I live in a less developed part of the world - Vietnam - and
| the government and people have been incredibly successful in
| controlling the virus here. Aside from two short lockdowns of a
| couple of weeks, my life has barely been affected (except for
| the lack of tourists and the fact I can't travel outside the
| country). Local tourism and business seems to be booming.
| Meanwhile I hear all the stories from back home in Europe, and
| from the US... And my sympathies go out to everyone living
| though that. But I don't the development level of a country has
| much at all to do with how well it's handling this pandemic.
|
| The only frustrating thing is how clearly it's been highlighted
| that the rich and powerful countries get all the vaccines and
| we'll only get them here once everyone in the west has been
| vaccinated three times over.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Vietnam and India aren't so comparable. In spite of both
| getting the label "developing country", India has more
| extreme poverty than Vietnam. Vietnam is also a more
| centralized, authoritarian state that is in a better position
| to enforce restrictions.
| tim333 wrote:
| It seems having right wing populists run the counties
| doesn't help much - see Trump, Bolsonaro, maybe to an
| extent Boris and Modi.
| esperent wrote:
| Of course. And the US had Trump leading it through the
| pandemic and a huge portion of the population who view mask
| wearing as a violation of fundamental rights. My point is
| that a country's status as "developing" doesn't seem to be
| the determining factor in how well they'll deal with it.
| Other factors are more important.
| refurb wrote:
| Like what? Respect for human rights? I mean, my brother
| is in Vietnam and some of the stuff they do there would
| be unconstitutional in the US.
| LightG wrote:
| Well, the right to keep and bear arms is constitutional
| in the US, so forgive me for discounting that statement.
| collyw wrote:
| Governments can't control a virus. East Asia seems to have
| existing immunity or a genetic factor that means they aren't
| getting hit anywhere near as badly as other parts of the
| world.
| oblio wrote:
| ???
|
| You do know that East Asia has been hit several times by
| local epidemics (for example SARS) and that people have
| gotten used - based on previous government
| recommendations/mandates - to wear masks? That same culture
| used to people wearing masks is obviously helping now.
|
| Governments can't completely control a virus, but they can
| definitely help curb its spread by taking effective
| measures. And one of that measures is effective
| communication, for example.
| graeme wrote:
| I live in Atlantic Canada and we absolutely controlled it.
| So did Australia and New Zealand.
| petre wrote:
| Yes, mostly islands or places with low population
| density. The outlier is Vietnam.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Mainland countries of Laos, Cambodia, Thailand (though
| that's now changing). Much of Africa, nominally, though I
| suspect that's seriously underreported. Sevaral of these
| are densely populated.
|
| Island territories are clearly easier to control movement
| to and from, but that is not the ony factor.
|
| And, of course, China. Again, if reports are to be
| believed.
| jnxx wrote:
| > The only frustrating thing is how clearly it's been
| highlighted that the rich and powerful countries get all the
| vaccines and we'll only get them here once everyone in the
| west has been vaccinated three times over.
|
| One can only be ashamed about the state of things. There are
| NGOs which try to help, but this is clearly not enough. And
| it is dumb, too - we will not get rid of the virus until all
| countries work together and help each other. It is a global
| issue, and our leaders do not have half enough brain to
| understand that.
| mattnewton wrote:
| I mean, it's not that they don't understand this, it's that
| they understand their electorate wants the vaccine first,
| and if they can't get a vaccine while the news tells them
| their politicians sent vaccine supply to Vietnam they'll
| vote you out of office. So you end up with half hearted
| things like this that seem designed to generate the least
| controversy: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/18/covid-vaccine-
| update-biden-t...
|
| Basically handing money out to NGO's so they generate
| headlines as helping and not the US government for the time
| being.
|
| > The administration stressed that the globally-focused
| funds will have no impact on the U.S. domestic vaccination
| program.
| thibran wrote:
| Please differentiate more. The US and UK don't share, but the
| EU does. The egoism of some countries hurt the idea of a free
| and equal world a lot these days...
| esperent wrote:
| No, the EU doesn't, unfortunately.
|
| > EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced
| that the bloc will not share coronavirus vaccines with
| other countries until it has "a better production situation
| in the EU." This is reported by DW.
|
| https://112.international/politics/eu-wont-share-covid-
| vacci...
| Shadonototro wrote:
| why would they give all their vaccine and forget about
| their own people
|
| they did, then stopped to plan the production, so they
| can share more later, that makes 100% sense and seems to
| be the best strategy to vaccinate everyone safely
|
| Saying "no they don't" is mostly a lie and is unfair to
| say, such a simplistic sentence that hides the real
| intentions
| noja wrote:
| > No, the EU doesn't, unfortunately.
|
| The EU _did_. For a year. And now it doesn 't, since the
| UK and USA do not.
| esperent wrote:
| > For a year
|
| The first vaccine only came out about 4 months ago.
|
| However, you are right - the EU has donated about 30
| million doses, enough for 15 million people. It's not
| nothing, but not that much either.
| noja wrote:
| It's not just about donations, it didn't block deliveries
| either.
| oblio wrote:
| One month ago:
|
| > Overall, 77 million doses have been shipped from the
| European Union since early December, 88 million will have
| been distributed internally by the end of the week, and
| 62 million shots have been administered within the bloc,
| European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/covid-
| vaccines-e...
|
| The EU tried to play nice and it was screwed over by
| other countries and by AstraZeneca.
|
| If you look at the numbers, the EU exported almost as
| many vaccines as it used, while its vaccination rate was
| half the UK/US one.
| Wildgoose wrote:
| Absolutely not true. The UK Government paid for the AZ
| vaccine to be developed and then stipulated as part of the
| contract that it must be made available at cost to
| developing countries.
|
| The EU on the other hand keeps seizing vaccines produced
| for other countries.
| brnt wrote:
| > The EU on the other hand keeps seizing vaccines
| produced for other countries.
|
| Citation needed. I've not heard about this at all.
| collyw wrote:
| https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/eu-
| official-a...
| brnt wrote:
| That's one seizure, of a small number according to the
| source. The claim was 'keeps seizing'...
| fspeech wrote:
| Why isn't a small number enough? The law abiding
| distributors would follow the ban, thus making further
| seizures unnecessary. Though to be honest the EU ban only
| targeted export to countries with better conditions
| (lower case rate or higher vaccination rate than Europe)
| and was only to last a few weeks, at least initially.
| krzyk wrote:
| It was a ban to export mainly to UK which already had
| plenty of vaccines. And AZ wasn't delivering to EU what
| was promised.
|
| If you promise to deliver you better do, or don't produce
| the product in there and ship it elsewhere.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| And the _way_ that the UK shares is by setting up
| production in other countries, which makes more sense
| than producing in the UK and shipping everywhere. But it
| makes it look like the UK is tight-fisted because the
| vaccines don 't get exported.
| rjsw wrote:
| One of the first AZ production sites was in India.
| tim333 wrote:
| >we'll only get them here once everyone in the west has been
| vaccinated three times over.
|
| Shipment of AstraZenca to Vietnam has started already.
| Wikipedia says 60m doses ordered "Including 30 million
| donated by COVAX Facility. Produced by SK Bioscience (South
| Korea)"
| simplerman wrote:
| > The only frustrating thing is how clearly it's been
| highlighted that the rich and powerful countries get all the
| vaccines and we'll only get them here once everyone in the
| west has been vaccinated three times over.
|
| Shouldn't countries that developed vaccines should take care
| of their citizens first?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That's one take, but not all endorse it.
|
| "Which approach leads to the least dead people globally?"
| is another potential way of looking at things.
| makomk wrote:
| India is actually one of the countries imposing export controls
| on vaccines in order to redirect them to domestic use, with the
| result that a lot of other developing countries don't have any
| at all...
| op03 wrote:
| Occasional source of havoc - yes. Permanent source of havoc -
| no.
|
| Vaccinations have ramped up in ways no one has every seen in
| history. And lots of lessons were learnt during the first few
| waves from all the blundering that happened. Nothing is static
| and predictable about systems that learn and change from day to
| day. Stick that on your Fridge. And re-examine how your
| prediction is doing next month.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| We are no where near having vacinated the whole world. And
| unless we change approach (from vaccine hoarding,
| nationalism, patents, export restriction) we likely wont get
| there.
| acvny wrote:
| Not surprising. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/12/india-
| thousands-joi...
| KorematsuFred wrote:
| This might sound like a dark humor but yesterday the issue of
| Oxygen shortage came up in Supreme Court of India. (For the
| uninitiated Indian Supreme Court acts a bit like village elder
| where they can give any random order to government for any reason
| even if there is no actual lawsuits under consideration.)
|
| Supreme court asked Government what their plan to increase Oxygen
| supply is and if they are planning to import it. The government's
| response is that they have floated a "tender" and have received
| 3-4 quotes. (Note that, many hospitals in India right now have <
| 24 hours of Oxygen supply).
|
| Supreme court then asked government to force steel and petrolium
| factories to divert their oxygen to hospitals because steel and
| petrolium is not important. :)
| roywiggins wrote:
| When hospitals run out of oxygen you end up with ICUs full of
| corpses:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/18/world/middleeast/egypt-ho...
|
| Seems like a rational thing to want to avoid, even if you have
| to screw steel mills for a little while.
| iamAtom wrote:
| Why would you post an article behind pay wall ?
| sturza wrote:
| You must be new here
| dang wrote:
| If there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post
| workarounds in the thread.
|
| This is in the FAQ at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
| and there's more explanation here:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989
| orblivion wrote:
| How many people close their windows and use air conditioning in
| India nowadays? Is it that season now?
| hunter-2 wrote:
| The fact that the official numbers are through the roof tell you
| how bad the unofficial (and real) numbers are.
|
| In the past week, there have been reports from several cities
| where the number of Covid deaths are measured in single digits -
| yet crematoriums are so full that people have started cremating
| their dead ones on sidewalks.
| puranjay wrote:
| I'm in Delhi right now and its truly bad over here. My neighbor
| was sick and we literally couldn't find a hospital bed for him
| that had sufficient oxygen. The system is breaking down.
|
| This is what they originally warned us about.
| bongoman37 wrote:
| I know well connected people in Delhi who are advisors to the
| Health ministry and they are unable to find beds for their
| relatives. Things are truly fucked.
| puranjay wrote:
| Yeah, have heard the same from friends - IAS officers are
| unable to find beds for their close family. Remdesivir is
| being sold at 20-50x retail price.
| kanche wrote:
| In some places by 20x! https://i.imgur.com/VJHL2VT.jpg
| gruez wrote:
| how do they know a cremation was for a covid-19 victim?
| nmridul wrote:
| Many people do not get admitted in hospitals (due to lack
| of beds etc) and they die home. Many of These "at home
| COVID deaths" do not get recorded as COVID.
| Exmoor wrote:
| You don't, but if the death rates are generally stable and
| predictable a huge increase during a COVID wave seems
| highly likely to be related.
|
| There have been plenty of analysis of various countries
| mortality rates compared to normal years. In general, the
| trend seems to be that poorer countries have probably
| missed a _lot_ of COVID deaths due to lack of testing
| infrastructure and heavily rural populations.
|
| https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-
| excess-...
| zamalek wrote:
| > You don't, but if the death rates are generally stable
| [...]
|
| For example: if a crematorium has historically dealt with
| 20 cremations a week and is now doing 100 a week, you can
| _estimate_ that 80 people are dying from COVID per week.
| The estimate is likely to be pretty inaccurate, but it 's
| the best source of information that there is.
| sgt101 wrote:
| >>The estimate is likely to be pretty inaccurate
|
| But let's be clear, inaccurate has different meanings -
| in this context if the official figure is 20 and it turns
| out that only 40 have died then that's 100% out on the
| official side and 50% out on the estimated side. In this
| context the high figure may have far more utility as well
| - by producing a more appropriate response from the
| authorities and society.
| truth_ wrote:
| You also have to take into account how many people are
| not dying of Covid, but some other diseases because the
| healthcare system is overwhelmed by covid, and they did
| not get treatment. Which is immensely more sad. Most of
| these deaths would have been prevented, if not for Covid.
| cobookman wrote:
| I'd expect in aggregate at the country level, its fairly
| accurate.
|
| E.g. its unlikely deaths increased 100%+ across all of
| india due to existing death-causes.
| roywiggins wrote:
| Certainly in NYC, I recall that at the worst of the first
| wave, excess deaths were very correlated with registered
| COVID deaths and they spiked simultaneously. There were
| fewer registered COVID deaths than excess deaths, but
| during the first spike testing wasn't always done, and
| people who died at home didn't always get a test
| postmortem.
|
| When there's a COVID spike, _most_ of the excess deaths
| are people dying of COVID (some might be people dying due
| to fear of COVID, or hospitals collapsing- arguably still
| "COVID fatalities" even if they don't test positive).
| vishnugupta wrote:
| By process of elimination. Some of the places are about a
| thousand mile apart. There aren't too many causes that
| could explain a simultaneous spike in cremations at all
| those places coinciding with the nation wide second wave of
| COVID-19.
| mathisonturing wrote:
| The article says, "number of people being cremated at
| special Covid sites"
| saas_sam wrote:
| I remember the same exact thing being said about Wuhan. That
| urns were completely sold out, that the gov't was covering it
| up, just terrible. To date China insists less than 5,000 people
| died of Covid, though and all of that was conspiracy talk.
| zhdc1 wrote:
| A lot of this also had to do with the Chinese going all in
| with their lockdown effort, which made it look like the
| situation was significantly worse than it actually was (it
| was bad, but some of the rumors going around at the time made
| it sound apocalyptic).
| Tarsul wrote:
| If China hadn't tried to put it under the rug, Italy/Europe
| wouldn't have been so underprepaired (well it also would've
| helped if the US would have played its usual part as a world
| leader). But I'm digressing... all the talk about our bad
| past doesn't alleviate the mistakes we still do today. Those
| are the most shameful even, where we have so much knowledge
| about the virus and still take the wrong turns all the time.
| zhdc1 wrote:
| Also keep in mind that most East/South East Asian countries
| had been preparing for a COVID-like event since SARS in
| 2003.
|
| Sixteen years of preparation, and everything that goes into
| it, paid off.
| shas3 wrote:
| I am surprised that there is no skepticism here about the
| cremation numbers.
|
| 1. Crematoriums usually have enough capacity to deal with
| average death rates. Anything above that and it starts to look
| horrific.
|
| 2. What is the definition of "covid protocol" for cremation?
| Does it mean the patient had covid? I don't see this clearly
| stated any where.
|
| 3. There might be a delay between the two numbers with
| crematorium numbers being more current. This also contributes
| to the "10x".
|
| The numbers are bad enough even without unscientific
| exaggerations.
|
| I am open-minded about this FT article's claims being accurate,
| but there
| sgt101 wrote:
| Well, science is all about observations, the idea of people
| being forced into adhoc cremations on the street is quite an
| observation.
| sg47 wrote:
| Is it due to space capacity or labor capacity?
| _coveredInBees wrote:
| Being India, it almost certainly isn't a labor capacity.
| sgt101 wrote:
| That is an really interesting question - if it's labour
| capacity then maybe there's a conflation due to cross
| infection.
| dheera wrote:
| Non-paywall link: https://californianewstimes.com/it-is-much-
| worse-this-time-i...
| yalogin wrote:
| This is what I feared the first time would be, but somehow the
| virus spared India. The first time around majority of the
| population was careful, masked up and stayed indoors. The death
| was super low. That caused people to get over confident, people
| believed that covid is not harmful in the country and they fully
| ignored it. Now there is an Indian variant of the virus which
| apparently and the infection rates and deaths are up.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I wonder if epidemiologists have confidence taken in account in
| their modesls. Probably but still.. it seems such a natural
| social bounce after extreme fear then lower rates..
| fnord77 wrote:
| Mask and isolation fatigue sets in.
| hesarenu wrote:
| Last peak was around october. It was expected to go higher due
| to reduced restrictions and coming up festivals. But instead it
| came down drastically. There were many articles on what caused
| it to go down(weather, sanitation, food etc). Now in peak
| summer April suddenly its going up. Its a sharp rise. Would be
| interested to know the cause of the sudden rise in coming
| months.
| ezluckyfree wrote:
| The new variants seem to be far more infectious, and this
| time make up a majority of infections.
| collyw wrote:
| Still a small fraction of what Europe has experienced.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...
| dtech wrote:
| There are serious indications that India is under-reporting
| death count by a factor of 5-50x. Despite showing 5-10x lower
| death rate in your source, it was rare for European
| crematoriums have backlogs like in India [1]
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/india/non-stop-cremations-
| cast...
| efrafa wrote:
| In Slovakia there were ice truck parked on the street,
| because crematoriums were full.
| briefcomment wrote:
| Isn't cremation the go to in India, but second to burials
| in places like Europe?
| kzrdude wrote:
| cremation is the majority option in northern europe and
| UK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_cre
| mation...
| snambi wrote:
| There is no reason to under report, because the government
| provides funds for everything. They may over report it,
| rather than under report it.
| FlyingSnake wrote:
| Wouldn't the opposition parties, independent media, foreign
| watchdogs raise the alarm if that was the case (prior to
| the current strain)? This would've been a golden
| opportunity to discredit the ruling government.
| navait wrote:
| My (Indian) wife says that the media just print the good
| things their party does because if they printed dirt
| about their opponents, those people would print dirt
| about them.
| kashif wrote:
| Clearly you know nothing about the Indian media and how
| it is suppressed by the government. Indian media is NOT
| FREE to report.
| murukesh_s wrote:
| Not a single day goes without seeing critical piece
| appearing in one of the listed sites:
|
| https://www.ndtv.com https://scroll.in https://thewire.in
|
| All of the foreign sites which are often very critical of
| the government like Aljazeera and BBC are also freely
| available. Note that scroll and wire are very left
| oriented and highly critical of the govt. So you need to
| balance the news with other medias. Even well established
| news papers like thehindu.com (leftist, run by leftist
| student leader N.Ram) and hindustantimes.com (run by
| opposition party) are also very popular and critical of
| the govt.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. It leads
| to flamewars, which are tedious and nasty.
|
| Instead, you can add solid information in a neutral way;
| or it's always ok not to post.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| Edit: it looks like you've done this repeatedly in recent
| months. That's not cool; please don't--regardless of how
| right you are, or feel you are, on the underlying issues.
| nmridul wrote:
| Even without government control, indian media is
| generally hesistant to publish (or delay the publication)
| large scale news that could create public panic. The news
| on mismanagement will start to come in few months once
| these things settle down.
|
| During the initial weeks of first wave , the media was
| more supportive of the government lockdown. Later when
| they realised that all was under control, media started
| bringing out the lockdown as a blunder.
| zo1 wrote:
| If the any of the "independent media" does this, they get
| censored for spreading "false covid information". It's
| painted as a conspiracy theory almost immediately.
| puranjay wrote:
| The doctors in my family all openly say that the real
| numbers are at least bigger by a factor of 10.
| bongoman37 wrote:
| This is varying a lot by state according to doctors I am
| connected to. UP and Gujarat are definitely fudging
| deaths by 5-10x, Karnataka seems to be more or less in
| line with reported deaths.
| itsbits wrote:
| Because no one have correct numbers to be frank. Media
| sometimes does act responsibly can be one of other
| reasons as well.
|
| But as people pointing here, Indian govt surely not
| controlling all media outlets. They does manage couple
| though.
| person_of_color wrote:
| I just hope their killer variants dont make it across borders
| qart wrote:
| Lockdowns hurt poor people very badly; they need to earn to
| survive. All the more reason _everyone_ should mask up. And yet,
| most people stopped masking months ago. Crowds are as bad as they
| were in 2019.
|
| On top of that, doctors here have created a craze for remdesivir,
| resulting in a blackmarket for it.
|
| The central and state governments have mismanaged plenty of
| things. While they deserve their share of blame, the ordinary
| people have only made matters worse. Chin-mask, no-mask, herbal
| "remedies", religious gatherings, weddings, engagements, naming
| ceremonies... the list goes on.
|
| As a truly perfect representative of the people, the chief
| minister here got COVID once, got vaccinated, and then got COVID
| a second time.
| supernovae wrote:
| What I don't get is why we call ourselves democracies and speak
| as "lockdowns hurt poor people very badly"
|
| In a representative democracy, you wouldn't lock down and force
| people to starve - you would lock down and provide
| income/food/capabilities for people to live regardless of their
| social/economic status.
|
| locking down isn't why poor people hurt, locking down and doing
| nothing to feed them does.
|
| It's like this pandemic is proving one thing - that we suck at
| democracy and we're not willing to do anything to fix it
| because we don't want to change how it works for so few when it
| doesn't work for exponentially more - as long as we're part of
| the so few, we'll turn a blind eye.
| lucian1900 wrote:
| Precisely.
|
| What you described is exactly what happened in China and
| Vietnam: one short strict lockdown while taking care of
| people's material necessities. Unsurprisingly, both countries
| have eliminated community transmission.
| sgt101 wrote:
| This is a naive reading of what has happened.
|
| There may well be some cross immunity in some communities
| due to previous coronavirus circulations. And the numbers
| in China are not all that credible - one guy at my work had
| three of four grandparents die of "some winter cold" in
| March last year. It will be quite some time before the
| numbers in China become clear I think.
| ridethebike wrote:
| I think if China didn't manage coronavirus successfully
| we'd have seen numbers of deaths due to "some winter
| cold" so large that even communist party wouldn't be able
| to hide
| sgt101 wrote:
| Really? They did a pretty good job of hiding a host of
| vast reeducation centres....
| rictic wrote:
| Did they? You can rely on your reader to know that you're
| referring to Xinjiang.
| KorematsuFred wrote:
| > you would lock down and provide income/food/capabilities
| for people to live regardless of their social/economic
| status.
|
| You are mistaking democracy with other virtues.
| income/food/capabilities do not come from thin air, it is
| eventually generated by people and under lockdowns when most
| economy is at a standstill this is incredibly difficult. So
| even the "redistribution" does not work that well. India is
| also a far poorer country so there is not much to distribute
| in first place.
|
| > locking down isn't why poor people hurt, locking down and
| doing nothing to feed them does.
|
| What we need is some humility that we do not fully understand
| what others need and the only way to find it out is by giving
| people freedom. Poor people in India right now do not want
| anyone's alms. They are more interested into going out, doing
| what they want to do rather than just get food clothing and
| shelter. The previous lockdown did ensure that everyone had
| food clothing and shelter through government and private
| charity efforts but people were in general pretty upset.
|
| I think we should stop assigning blame to democracy just
| because realities don't match up our expectations, partly
| because we are not infinitely smart to understand what other
| people want.
| devonbleak wrote:
| I think it's safe to assume if you're missing anything from
| the base of Maslow's hierarchy then those things are
| probably included in what you immediately need, let alone
| what you want.
| supernovae wrote:
| This to me just reads as excuses based on how it is, not
| how it could have been.
|
| Learned helplessness is what they call it.
| grecy wrote:
| Canada, Australia & New Zealand (and I'm sure many other
| countries) have done an excellent job providing money to
| people who are stuck at home because they can't go to work.
| Here in Canada it was $500/week for 28 weeks, then you moved
| onto a different scheme if you still needed support. Everyone
| who needed it go it. We have not been desperately waiting for
| a pittance of $1200.
|
| Be careful not to generalize that _all_ democracies have done
| a poor job just because some have.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| >> We have not been desperately waiting for a pittance of
| $1200.
|
| No, we've been desperately waiting for vacinnes after being
| repeatedly promised there will be plently for everyone
| ("look at all these contracts we've signed!") while they
| pay you off with massive borrowing that someone is going to
| be responsible for when the music stops.
|
| Meanwhile Texas, the poster-child for bad behaviour, is
| headed back to normal.
| supernovae wrote:
| Texas is not normal :)
|
| Most of us are staying home still, in the major cities we
| collectively wear masks regardless of our goofy gov.
| Large places of employment still aren't opening offices
| and many that are talking about opening are doing so with
| the realization it won't be like it used to be...
| chrismat wrote:
| Not sure where you live - but I travel full time in an RV
| and have stayed and traveled through El Paso, Austin,
| Houston, San Antonio and everywhere in between in the
| last 3 months. Maybe some are still hiding at home, but
| from my experience the overwhelming majority of Texans
| seem to be out enjoying the sunshine and open businesses.
| grecy wrote:
| > _Meanwhile Texas, the poster-child for bad behaviour,
| is headed back to normal._
|
| Fifty THOUSAND people died in Texas. I'm not sure how
| anyone can hold it up as a *good" comparison.
| chrismat wrote:
| The population of Texas is 29,000,000 - so even
| (incorrectly) assuming that these 50,000 people died
| _exclusively_ from Covid and not compounded by several
| co-morbities... that 's 0.17% of the state's population.
| And even as a factor of the number of cases in TX
| (2.84mil, last check), that comes to 1.7%.
| helloworld11 wrote:
| Thank you, a little dose of practical perspective with
| numbers, instead of all-caps hysteria with
| descontextualizad mentions of thousands.
| grecy wrote:
| At 1,721 deaths per million of population, if Texas were
| a country it would be the 16th worst on the planet.
|
| Ranking 16th worst out of 198 is not an enviable or
| "good" place to be.
|
| https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?new
|
| https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/texas/
| makomk wrote:
| It's a fairly typical place for a western country to be
| at this stage of the pandemic. Because of the way the
| disease spread via inter-country travel from, mostly,
| Italy and surrounding countries, the developed western
| world was hit first - and because people have to be
| tested in order for their deaths to be recorded as
| Covid-19 related, only countries with a reasonably well-
| developed healthcare system and economy actually report
| meaningful death counts. (The US in particular had really
| widespread testing compared to almost everyone else
| during the whole time period where it had a widespread
| Covid-19 outbreak - though the mainstream media gave the
| opposite impression for partisan political reasons.)
| grecy wrote:
| > _It 's a fairly typical place for a western country to
| be at this stage of the pandemic_
|
| I'm horrified you can waive it away as "fairly typical"
| for a western country when Texas has a deaths/1 million
| population 3 times that of Canada, 4 times that of
| Denmark and on and on.
| makomk wrote:
| Denmark has about half the Covid-19 deaths per capita of
| the next highest European country based on the figures
| I've found. They're very much not typical. Neither is
| Canada, though I haven't been able to figure out what
| gave them such good results early on since they didn't do
| anything that unusual and it really doesn't seem to have
| lasted (their new infection rate crossed that of the US
| and hit an all-time high recently). Denmark's the usual
| combination of being reasonably well distanced from Italy
| geographically and geopolitically, strict border closures
| starting in March 2020, and a certain amount of lockdown
| and social distancing mixed in - there's a handful of
| countries like that with reasonable results. (The other
| Nordic countries minus Sweden, New Zealand, and Australia
| spring to mind. Think there's a few others as well, but
| not many.)
| selimthegrim wrote:
| The CDC failures at the beginning were a stitchup by the
| Democrats? Quick, write your article in time for the
| Pulitzer!
| makomk wrote:
| The reporting on the CDC's failures certainly was a
| stitchup on behalf of the Democrats. For example, the US
| had a really aggressive rollout of Covid-19 testing
| compared to Europe and other places which would've left
| it much better equipped to spot community spread early on
| when the number of cases was still small - right up until
| the point the reagents turned up at labs and didn't work,
| and ages was wasted working out why. Turns out some
| nominally well-qualified, non-partisan CDC official had
| covered up the fact the tests were contaminated and let
| them roll out to labs anyway. You wouldn't know this from
| the media reporting which inverted the blame, telling
| their readers it was Trump and his administration which
| decided not to have widespread Covid testing, that any
| screw-ups were due to his political appointees, and
| literally had people begging in the NYT comments section
| for career CDC staff to take over the running of the
| whole pandemic response because at least _they_ were
| competent, unlike Trump and co.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I think you are letting Trump appointees at the CDC off
| far too easily:
| https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-the-fall-of-
| the-cd...
|
| 'McGowan reached his breaking point when Redfield asked
| him to stop the deportation of a dog, according to people
| who worked closely with him.
|
| In late June, a Peace Corps volunteer evacuated from West
| Africa was told that the rabies vaccine of her dog, a
| terrier mix named Socrates, was not valid. Rabies
| vaccines are marked with pink dye, and a photo of
| Socrates' vaccination showed a clear liquid, a CDC email
| said. Border authorities said Socrates had to be sent
| back to Africa, revaccinated and quarantined there for 28
| days before returning. The Peace Corps volunteer sparked
| a #SaveSocrates outcry on social media.
|
| CDC experts told McGowan that the last foreign dog with
| rabies that slipped through had cost more than $500,000
| in public health charges, including shots for 44 people
| who had been near the animal, an email shows. Making an
| exception threatened to render the policy unenforceable
| for the 500 animals that are deported every year.
|
| At a time when the pandemic had killed nearly 130,000
| Americans, McGowan spent an hour and a half on the phone
| with the HHS general counsel and other senior officials
| to figure out how to make an exception for a dog. All the
| while, he told colleagues, his mind kept returning to the
| fact that the same administration was using the CDC's
| quarantine power to deport thousands of children at the
| border with Mexico.
|
| Later that day, Brian Harrison, the HHS chief of staff
| and a former labradoodle breeder, announced the
| liberation of Socrates. Secretary Azar tweeted out the
| news with the hashtag #SaveSocrates.
|
| Privately, McGowan fumed.
|
| "He was sad, downtrodden and defeated," a colleague said.
| "This was really the final straw for him: How we are
| going to let dogs in, but basically we're going to
| require children to be carted off and out of the country?
| And all in the name of public health."
|
| McGowan resigned in August.
|
| The following month, Caputo took a medical leave after he
| hosted a live video on his personal Facebook in which he
| accused "deep state scientists" of "sedition" and warned
| his followers to stock up on ammunition in anticipation
| of political upheaval. In that rant, which was reported
| by The New York Times, Caputo said CDC scientists had
| only changed out of their sweatpants to meet at coffee
| shops and plot "how they're going to attack Donald Trump
| next."'
| MiSeRyDeee wrote:
| You realize that the stimulus check comes with a cost
| right? You almost sound like government can just give
| arbitrary money to citizens but isn't willing to do so.
| jgeada wrote:
| Less than 6% of the stimulus funds went to pay people,
| most of the money went into tax savings for banks and big
| companies (that clearly hadn't stopped eating avocado
| toast and starbucks coffee and hadn't salted away money
| for emergencies /s)
|
| We could have done a blanket shutdown for 1 month, paid
| everybody to stay home and it would have cost multiple
| order magnitudes less than the current nightmare
| approach, that not only still impacted the economy, also
| caused 100's of thousands of dead people. This was a
| preventable catastrophe, caused because corporations are
| better represented and more important to our politicians
| than actual citizens. Thanks Citizen's United for
| legalizing blatant corruptions /s
| supernovae wrote:
| You can absolutely give money to citizens. The government
| is FOR and BY the citizens. If the citizens agree to
| shutdown, they can agree to provide a means to continue
| society through the shutdown.
|
| The notion that we can't do this, is the one i have
| problems with because its absurd.
| CivBase wrote:
| You _can_ do this, but it has consequences. Money is not
| inherently valuable. It 's a medium we use to store and
| exchange value inherent to scarce goods and services
| which people demand. To be a stable representation of
| value, money must also be scarce. This is a fundamental
| concept of economy, not something decided on and enforced
| by government.
|
| The money a government gives to citizens must come from
| somewhere. They could liquidate assets owned by the
| government, borrow it from another government, take it
| from entities who are subject to the government's
| authority (taxes), or - what I assume you're getting at -
| just make more of it.
|
| That last one isn't as simple as it sounds because it
| doesn't increase the cumulative value of the currency.
| Printing dollars is like dividing a pizza into more and
| more slices. It doesn't increase the amount of pizza.
| Inflation is a very real problem that has annihilated
| economies.
| jgeada wrote:
| Funny how none of that ever comes up when we're
| discussing bailing out corporations. Quantitative easing
| by itself was several trillions of dollars arbitrarily
| invented, let alone the various bank and corporate
| bailouts over the past decade. And don't forget that we
| literally allow banks and such to print money and stocks
| on demand (aka leverage) to allow them to make money.
|
| In any case, value fiat money is not a product of rarity,
| it is a statement of the value of future tax receipts.
| Money encodes/is an exchange marker for work done or
| promises of work to be done.
| cryptoz wrote:
| The cost of _not_ doing stimulus is much much higher than
| the cost of doing it, though.
| maxerickson wrote:
| The US paid a lot more than the $1200, in the form of
| unemployment supplements.
|
| $600 a week at the beginning of the pandemic through July
| and then $300 a week this year, in addition to a second
| $2000 payment that went out to more than furloughed or
| unemployed people.
| nielsbot wrote:
| How does it compare to France, Denmark and the UK though?
| makomk wrote:
| Pretty sure it's much more generous than the UK for
| everyone except the well-off. In many cases the US
| managed to pay more than 100% of people's previous
| salaries in unemployment, structured to be most generous
| compared to their previous job for those with the least
| pay before, whereas furlough for those lucky enough to
| get it was capped at 75% and unemployment for those
| unlucky enough to lose their jobs entirely was barely
| boosted over the stingy standard payments. Unfortunately,
| trusted US publications like the New York Times mislead
| their readers about this for nakedly partisan reasons,
| just like they did with every other part of the US
| pandemic response and how it compared to the rest of the
| world.
| maxerickson wrote:
| I dunno, I just updated the first paragraph to make it
| more clear that I was responding to the $1200 (I replaced
| "that" with "the $1200").
| supernovae wrote:
| These numbers don't mean much on their own.
|
| Sure, if you live with mom and pop and you got laid off
| from a job and had a place to fall back onto, yippee
|
| If you live in pretty much any major city and you're the
| breadwinner then it doesn't cover rent/mortgage.
|
| We froze foreclosures, so there are estimated millions
| pending. Unemployment is still in pre-pandemic numbers -
| all though improving.
|
| I think our reliance on "job" to live is problematic when
| a virus doesn't care about the societal ramifications of
| a job.
|
| I think we should talk more broader UBI programs and talk
| about what countries did that worked... do a huge
| retrospective and make things better for the future.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| In Seattle, I know people who received the equivalent of
| $75k/year on unemployment from various government
| sources. That exceeds the median _household_ income in
| the State, never mind individual income. This is on top
| of, in some cases, a generous severance.
|
| That easily covered their mortgage and their lifestyle,
| even in this expensive city, and was in no way
| sustainable. They had no interest in looking for work
| while they were receiving those benefits, but now that
| the benefits are disappearing they've started looking for
| work again.
| macintux wrote:
| Conversely I know a young couple in Indiana who have no
| idea how they're going to feed themselves each week.
| There are always examples of abuse to point to, but for
| many people the safety net is a wet paper bag at best.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| There was no implication of abuse intended in what I
| wrote. The intent was temper the notion that everyone
| receiving unemployment benefits is on the brink of
| poverty. The reality varies widely. The topic requires
| more nuance.
| maxerickson wrote:
| I don't think we need a UBI that makes it easy to live in
| a city where ~$3000 month ($2400 + normal unemployment)
| won't cover expenses including housing.
| supernovae wrote:
| 2400 a month is rent here in Austin - and not even
| expensive rent. Without income, those rentals will
| foreclose/be evicted. Are you saying future pandemic
| responses should imply much of society simply deserves to
| be destitute?
| JohnCohorn wrote:
| > 2400 a month is rent here in Austin
|
| Just no, not unless you live in a luxury dwelling or
| location. Here's an example place I used to live long
| ago. Centrally located, next to the major highways, and
| not unsafe. It's old and not fancy, but under $1000 and
| your living expenses can be much lower than that with a
| roommate. https://www.livechevychase.com/floorplans
| maxerickson wrote:
| Unable to afford $2400 month housing in an expensive city
| isn't the same thing as destitute.
|
| There's houses available in much of the country for
| $100,000 or less. I'm fine arguing that people can have
| the option to struggle paying high rent or move, we don't
| need to pay the high rent just because they prefer the
| place.
| HappySweeney wrote:
| Those houses are $100k or less because the only jobs
| nearby don't pay enough to buy something more expensive.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| bobthechef wrote:
| That's extremely vague and untenable.
|
| Besides, the lockdowns were completely unwarranted. Sure, at
| the beginning, no one seemed to know how dangerous this thing
| is, but we have learned quite a bit about it since and it
| does not merit the sweeping lockdowns in place. Locking down
| and protecting the vulnerable like those with comorbidities,
| absolutely, but not _everyone_. It is not that dangerous of a
| virus!
|
| Sadly, this has proven to be a successful experiment in how
| media-driven FUD, sloppy reporting, and blatant
| misinformation can make people behave irrationally. We know
| the tallies are bogus because of the bad monetary incentives
| and methods used to determine whether someone's death counts
| as a COVID death, we know that something like a half a
| percent of the population is really affected, we know that
| the side effects of the lockdown are very concerning (rising
| suicide, undiagnosed cancers and other illnesses because
| people fear medical facilities). This is all pure political
| opportunism at this point.
|
| You want to help the poor? Get rid of the lockdown. The
| longer you wait, the harder it is going to be to admit that
| there's nothing to fear (frankly, that ship has kind of
| sailed; people will ask "well, if it isn't that dangerous,
| why have we been under lockdown?"). You need a believable
| exit. (Enter the vaccine.)
| mrtweetyhack wrote:
| that's not even what democracy means.
| fareesh wrote:
| Democracy is the system of elected representatives. You can
| elect a government that is completely opposed to welfare
| programs.
|
| India has some of the hardest working people in the world,
| and it's a shame the way many have been treated by government
| programs. Government handouts have created a culture in which
| many of the poor are at the mercy of corrupt bureaucrats just
| to get by.
|
| "What's that you say? Your rice allotment was 100 grams less
| than you're entitled to? Fuck you. Store is closed today. Hey
| everyone, thank smartass over here, nobody gets rice today."
|
| This is government welfare here in India.
| KorematsuFred wrote:
| I was born poor. One american idea that does resonate with
| me after coming to USA is that a lot of poor people do not
| see themselves as poor. While their struggles are real they
| do not see themselves as losers but rather see themselves
| as strugglers who will eventually make it some day. They
| make life better for themselves and others. That was the
| case with my family. We lived in a house whose floor was
| basically painted with cowdung, roof leaked, we could not
| afford meat and we borrowed newspapers from others to read.
| Yet, not once we would call ourselves poor and demand that
| someone else take care of us. It would be insulting for our
| pride.
|
| A lot of well off people in India and USA automatically
| think of poor people as losers or without agency. They then
| propose that government must help them. Guess what, other
| than a small fraction of poor people most DO NOT want that
| help. They would rather prefer to do what they want to do.
| Poor people do not want your food, clothing and shelter,
| they have their own desires. We can not possibly know what
| they are.
|
| India is an extremely social country and lockdowns have
| much bigger costs for people. If people are angry and fed
| up and willing to risk their lives, I can understand. I do
| not think assurance of food or money per month will keep
| them indoors.
|
| What we need is some humility to recognize that just
| because someone else has less money than we do, that does
| not reduce their self worth or gives us the right to know
| "what they need".
|
| PS. Shortage of food was not a problem in India during last
| lockdown it is not a problem today either. Food Corporation
| of India has a record stockpile of rice right now.
| sombremesa wrote:
| > I was born poor.
|
| You can get out of being poor. You cannot get out of
| being dalit[0].
|
| > While their struggles are real they do not see
| themselves as losers but rather see themselves as
| strugglers who will eventually make it some day.
|
| Only about 20% of Indians can afford to have even
| aspirations. About 66% cannot. 18% struggle to even
| survive. Newspaper? They would eat it. [1] (data from
| 2016)
|
| > They then propose that government must help them. Guess
| what, other than a small fraction of poor people most DO
| NOT want that help.
|
| The relationship between the government and the people in
| India is very different from what you are probably used
| to. It's true that many people in India don't want the
| government's "help", but that's because this "help" is
| usually exploitation. They'd be lucky to be left alone.
| [2]
|
| > If people are angry and fed up and willing to risk
| their lives
|
| You have to pass a certain threshold of awareness to be
| categorized as "willing". Most of these people have no
| idea what the consequences of their actions are. Almost a
| third(!) of the women in India cannot even read or write.
| [3]
|
| > What we need is some humility to recognize that just
| because someone else has less money than we do, that does
| not reduce their self worth or gives us the right to know
| "what they need".
|
| Should the same litmus test apply to your post about the
| Indian condition?
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalit#Discrimination
| [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/482584/india-
| households-... [2]
| https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/governance/why-india-
| s-p... [3]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_India
| KorematsuFred wrote:
| None of that you have stated is even remotely relevant to
| the discussion at hand but appears like a bait for some
| kind of flamewar. I will not take this bait.
|
| > Should the same litmus test apply to your post about
| the Indian condition?
|
| Obviously. But my post is about not making assumptions
| about what poor people want and rather trust that they
| have an agency.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Don't you need ration card to access PDS?
| KorematsuFred wrote:
| The whole thing is a sham. If you don't have ration card
| you can still buy it by paying a higher price to the
| 'dealer' who then secretly puts it under the account of
| someone else who is probably dead.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| Not to diminish your experience, but you are an
| exception. Most poor people stay poor, no matter how hard
| they work.
|
| And most poor people prefer free food over no food. You
| are right that most would prefer a dignified job and
| _agency_ over their lives, but to say that people prefer
| to starve than to accept aid, or that it is just fine as
| a matter of policy to let people starve (or die of
| diarrhea as hundreds of indian children do each day as
| they don 't have access to clean water) is just absurd.
| No one wants to watch their children die.
|
| Again, i dont doubt your lived experience, but please do
| reflect on your views and whether they even remotely
| reflect reality.
| supernovae wrote:
| There is a HUGE difference in accepting a dole because
| you're shut down for the survival of your species and
| can't work vs how you see yourself functioning in a
| society where you can work.
| KorematsuFred wrote:
| I do acknowledge the difference, what I am trying to
| highlight that perhaps dole is not what they want.
| Perhaps the poor people are not interested in staying
| indoors in return for dole and would rather risk their
| lives to seek things that value more than dole. It is not
| the lack of dole that is causing the failure of
| lockdowns.
| nostromo wrote:
| At a certain point you run out of money.
|
| The US can print trillions of dollars in an emergency as a
| world reserve currency. Most countries cannot do this.
|
| The idea that India could just pay 1.4 billion people not to
| work for a year doesn't seem like a realistic proposal.
| supernovae wrote:
| On what premise? This kind of talk presumes economies and
| governments don't serve the will of the people.
|
| I mean, lets be real, if they don't serve the will of the
| people then the economy and government is short term and
| lockdowns were never the problem, but a symptom...
| f00zz wrote:
| Not every country has the privilege of having the world's
| reserve currency. Money printing never ends well for poor
| countries.
| supernovae wrote:
| In a democracy, This isn't a privilege, its the will of
| the people.
|
| Why frame it as money printing? Does everything that can
| help people have to be pejorative?
| sgt101 wrote:
| I think that the OP is pointing out that some democracies
| are freer to act than others. The USA has absolute
| latitude, especially after demonstrating that countries
| that might threaten that latitude (ie. anyone who cut the
| oil off up to 10 years ago - now irrelevant) will be
| destroyed. India does not have all that much latitude.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Every sovereign nation with resources should be able to
| handle emergencies. India is not a small nation without
| resources. At this point, it seems that people are shifting
| blame from an ineffective government as well as people's
| will to cooperate on some externality such as world reserve
| currency.
|
| Did people read the FT article at all?
| llampx wrote:
| Shutting down an economy is well past any fathomable
| emergency.
| devonbleak wrote:
| Not with that attitude it's not.
|
| It's not that they can't afford it - it's that they're
| unwilling to actually leverage the wealth of their country
| to do it. I seriously don't understand the thinking that
| resources are still so scarce that an entire country like
| India somehow can't afford to meet the basic needs of its
| people (let alone the US). If the resources exist you
| figure out how to get them to the people that need them.
| Not doing this is how you get unrest, a massive rise in
| crime and eventually coups, wars, etc. Democracy and
| capitalism are not givens - they are very much still
| experiments that can and do fail.
| nradov wrote:
| Redistributing wealth won't help if the store shelves are
| empty. People have to be out there working and making
| stuff or else we won't have any stuff.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Only around 2-8% of people in cities need to work to
| sustain everyone's livelihoods.
|
| As for those who live off of agriculture, you can ensure
| basic self sufficiency.
| loonster wrote:
| You can't print a chicken. Money is only the intermediary.
| raincom wrote:
| There are tons of chicken farmers in the world who love
| to exchange their chickens for the US dollars. However,
| the same farmers don't want to sell their chickens for
| Zimbabwian dollars. USD has the world reserve currency
| status, that's why MMT folks want to print money to spend
| on fiscal policy. Third world countries don't have this
| luxury.
| [deleted]
| gilbetron wrote:
| The point isn't to do it for a year, but to do it for 2-3
| weeks in a very strict manner. If you prepare for it, and
| then do it every time the spread starts going exponential,
| then you can keep the numbers incredibly low until vaccines
| are distributed.
| habibur wrote:
| That's a dream. Money don't feed people. Foods do. And
| human activity necessary to feed a billion people sitting
| at home will require another billion to do the
| production, distribution and organization in a timely
| manner.
|
| And the whole point of lockdown was to prevent people
| from performing these movements.
|
| I don't see a good solution here.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| This is really not the case. You buy food from farmers,
| who can keep money, and you use existing government
| capacity to distribute it. It's been done before and can
| be done still.
| ticviking wrote:
| But then the laborers who process the food have to go to
| work. And often work in close quarters in factories where
| it's easy to spread the virus.
| [deleted]
| alex_smart wrote:
| >In a representative democracy, you wouldn't lock down and
| force people to starve - you would lock down and provide
| income/food/capabilities for people to live regardless of
| their social/economic status.
|
| I didn't realize that being a rich country with a developed
| economy was a pre-requisite to being a representative
| democracy.
| supernovae wrote:
| It's not... in fact, I'd say other democracies with less
| emphasis on wealth at all cost, do it much better.
| sombremesa wrote:
| Hard to take GP seriously. India can even raise funds
| from various sources (see: PM Cares) if needed, to
| provide for these needs. They just don't want to, much
| rather line their own pockets than feed the poor (who
| happen to be their voting bank, but are too uneducated to
| vote in their own interest).
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Providing food is far from something only developped
| countries can do. Very poor countries can and have done so.
| All you have to provide is food, shelter, and maybe a very
| small baseline of income.
| jasonfarnon wrote:
| Which are the poor countries you have in mind? How long
| have they sustained that assistance?
| pagerdutyalert wrote:
| In addition to the financial, the environmental strain is
| intense too. City living with the kind of strict lockdowns
| imposed was to say the least claustrophobic.
|
| What is surprising is misinformation around the variant when
| there isn't definitive evidence on its morbidity or contagion.
| The obvious cause is a population letting its guard down!
| vsundar wrote:
| While I do think it is true that people break norms, I'd say a
| large factor here has been the messaging and leaders behaving
| like the danger is past.
|
| Leaders like the home minister, Amit Shah [1] and the health
| minister Harsh Vardhan [2] have been saying that we are in the
| end stage from Jan. Starting vaccinations is not the end game.
| We opened up for crowds for a cricket match (57k) [3] and kumbh
| mela [4] ( _actively promoted by the state and central govt_ ),
| where the latter was expecting crowd in millions. (10 lakhs is
| 1 million). Covid protocol could really not be followed with
| that crowd [11]. We literally had an Assam minister saying that
| masks weren't needed earlier this month[6]. And of course
| election rallies with big crowds [5]. PM Modi was exulting
| about a huge crowd just a few days ago [12] Amit Shah was
| actually saying these are not related to the spikes [13]
|
| I'd actually lay the blame on these:
|
| - Inconsistent messaging on safety precautions.
|
| - Vaccine shortage and related slow vaccination drives. India
| did not give advance orders and stockpile vaccines [8]
|
| - Oxygen shortage. We already know oxygen was needed. The govt
| didn't follow through and build capacity for oxygen plants. We
| floated tenders 8 months into the pandemic and didn't follow
| through [9]
|
| - We did not pay attention to and sequence variants to stay on
| top of things. [10]
|
| I could go on... we are short various medicines, facilities;
| state govts of Gujarat, UP, MP, Bihar were actively under
| reporting by sometimes more than 10x [13]- if you don't
| acknowledge the problem, you can't _fix_ the problem; not
| opening up vaccinations to everyone and not letting in vaccines
| that were already approved outside (both until very recently);
| not listening to folks who were trying to point these out...
|
| Apologies for the long response. But yea, I'm shocked at how
| bad things are, and, while I think people can follow rules
| better, I'd squarely lay the blame for this on the govt.
|
| [1] https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/union-home-minister-amit-
| sha...
|
| [2] https://www.indiatoday.in/coronavirus-outbreak/story/we-
| are-...
|
| [3] https://www.thestadiumbusiness.com/2021/03/15/narendra-
| modi-...
|
| [4] https://www.thequint.com/news/india/massive-crowd-gathers-
| fo...
|
| [5] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/covid-
| has-a-...
|
| [6] https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/assam-health-minister-
| himan...
|
| [7] https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2020/dec/22/no-
| masks...
|
| [8] https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/how-we-landed-in-
| covid-...
|
| [9] https://scroll.in/article/992537/india-is-running-out-of-
| oxy...
|
| [10] https://scroll.in/latest/990519/coronavirus-less-
| than-1-samp...
|
| [11] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/maha-
| kumbh-m...
|
| [12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5jzuE866lo
|
| [13]
| https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1384782949879517185
| (may have to go through the twitter link to access ft article)
| gopalv wrote:
| > On top of that, doctors here have created a craze for
| remdesivir, resulting in a blackmarket for it.
|
| So this was shared by someone who claims to be an ICU doctor in
| Delhi - the prescriptions are not being written because they
| are medically necessary.
|
| My family member with the lowest SpO2 is in the DRDO hospital
| is on Ivermectin + prednisone & a Dexa IV (& not remdesivir).
|
| The rumour is that some doctor had his arm broken by a family
| member for not prescribing the remdesivir after the patient
| died.
|
| So the doctors are writing prescriptions and asking the
| patients to source them, even if the hospital dispensary has
| the drug in storage, to avoid getting beaten up by the patients
| family.
|
| This has created a complete black market for the drug, which
| vastly outstrips the demand and hopefully the doctors are
| probably just chucking whatever shady vial the family brings
| over instead of putting in a sick person.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| I wish people gave a bit more shit about protecting themselves
| properly, I see too many half-assed mask wearing (with the nose
| out) around. Or people thinking being masked means they can
| just hover near others.
|
| I also wish that governments try to inform more, I don't really
| see anyone saying "Ventilate more!" like this research results
| suggest they should:
| https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-10-28/a-room-a-bar-a...
| .
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| > _I wish people gave a bit more shit about protecting
| themselves properly_
|
| I wish people gave a bit more shit about protecting others
| properly. The people who don't wear masks properly are the
| ones who think only about themselves ("this mask won't
| protect me anyway") and don't care about how masks help
| protect the people around them.
| alex_smart wrote:
| Indian people are very selfish in general unfortunately.
| Living in a resource-starved environment would do that to
| you.
| simplezeal wrote:
| This is hyper generalization without any references to
| back the assertion.
| ncallaway wrote:
| Absolutely this.
|
| People who refuse to wear a mask around others, or
| intentionally wear one poorly are just telegraphing how
| little they care for other people.
| ls612 wrote:
| I'm vaccinated, why the hell should I wear a mask besides
| the fact that the government says so? The odds of me
| having any detectable viral load to transmit are
| extremely low. [1]
|
| [1]https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0329-COVID-19
| -Vacci...
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| I think putting the blame on people for weddings, religious
| ceremonies (aka normal everyday life which is going to happen,
| even during the Afghanistan War people had wedding celebrations
| despite the danger) is misguided.
|
| Governments are getting rightful blame. I think the media also
| don't help. How many stupid news outlets were saying that
| Indian people have some kind of genetic immunity to COVID with
| absolutely no evidence of any such thing? That affects people
| more than one wedding.
| qart wrote:
| The virus does not care what you consider misguided. Make all
| the excuses you want, but crowds lead to spreading of
| airborne diseases.
| renewiltord wrote:
| It's public health. If your policies get people sick, then
| you've failed at managing public health. You can blame
| whomever you like but ultimately you've failed.
| fabatka wrote:
| Sure, but disease containment is not (or should not be) the
| sole metric to optimize for.
|
| Edit: grammar fix
| mavhc wrote:
| Problem is people don't understand exponential growth,
| whenever the R number if >1 you're totally screwed, even
| if just 1 person is infected
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| The virus may spread in whatever way it does, but what
| public-health measures are to be used to respond to it,
| have to have some kind of mandate from the population.
| Already in several countries the authorities have chosen
| not to impose tighter restrictions on gatherings because
| the population has shown that it would flaunt them. In that
| case, public-health officials have to change their
| messaging to e.g. encouraging those gathering to do so
| outdoors, where transmission is less likely.
| ryandrake wrote:
| If only there were some way to punish people who violate
| government mandated measures. Like, I don't know, maybe
| we could dress some people up with a uniform and badge,
| and give them the authority to stop violators and "fine"
| or "incarcerate" them. Some kind of "justice system" or
| something. I don't know, this is a new invention I'm
| coming up with on the fly.
|
| We had this problem in the USA, too. All these "mandates"
| flying around, and governments congratulating themselves
| over their stay-at-home "orders", yet very little to
| nothing in the way of enforcement. We seem to be able to
| enforce drunk driving and seatbelt laws, but when it
| comes to masks and preventing gatherings, we're
| flummoxed! Suddenly, nobody knows how to enforce the
| rules anymore!
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| One cannot always just tell police to enforce
| restrictions and that is that. Courts have the right to
| review laws and decrees, after all, and in some countries
| courts have found that the government exceeded its
| authority by imposing mask laws, social distancing, or
| business closures. Consequently, police could give you a
| fine, but that fine would be dismissed when you go to
| court. After a series of defeats in court, ruling parties
| may then ask police to stop enforcing the restrictions,
| because the embarrassment could help cost them the next
| election.
|
| Again, COVID restrictions ultimately require some kind of
| mandate from the people. If a country's government is
| unable to legally impose restrictions within its current
| constitutional order, and it is unable to gather
| sufficient votes to amend the constitution, then it will
| simply have to limit itself to public-health measures
| that the people will accept.
| majoram wrote:
| That's a horrible idea in today's social/political
| climate. Just try visualizing a police officer trying to
| arrest a black person for not wearing a mask. Or police
| being sent to gatherings in black neighborhoods. Sorry
| but I'd rather have more covid deaths than more riots and
| possibly a race war in my country.
| InvertedRhodium wrote:
| Why would the color of their skin have anything to do
| with it?
| majoram wrote:
| It has everything to do with it when it comes to the U.S.
| If we were another country, maybe it would be acceptable
| to have police harrass people for not wearing masks. But
| in the U.S., giving police the license to harrass people
| minding their own business will inevitably result in more
| police brutality that affects some races more than
| others.
| hesarenu wrote:
| Wearing mask might just delay getting the infection. I wore
| mask all the time, wfh and go out only for groceries, still got
| infected. And when the CM gets Covid a second time after
| vaccination anyone can get it even with mask or vaccination.
| standardUser wrote:
| Wearing a mask is method of reducing the risk of
| transmission. No one ever claimed it prevented transmission.
| Wearing a mask but still getting infected is not an abnormal
| or unexpected outcome.
| vram22 wrote:
| The guideline is: your mask protects me, and my mask protects
| you. From what I read earlier, when COVID19 was new, the
| guideline is based on the physics of masks and airflow, and
| how masks reduce transmission of the virus via speaking,
| sneezing and coughing.
| vram22 wrote:
| So, by the quick knee- _jerk_ downvotes, I can see that
| anti-science types on HN are alive and buzzing, in their
| cesspools.
| lolthishuman wrote:
| So based on a belief you don't actually understand. Got it.
| vram22 wrote:
| Fool or troll or prejudiced frigtard that you undoubtedly
| are, where, above, have I said that I don't understand
| it? If I haven't said it, it is your wrong understanding
| or claim (unless there is good evidence), which is why I
| 'decorated' you with those above adjectives :), just as
| you implied wrong shit about me. Dry up and blow away,
| weakling. Don't pollute this space for your pathetic ego-
| boosting kicks.
|
| Update: Also, as I've said many times on Twitter (as
| @vasudevram), "Bullies are always cowards". You are using
| a throwaway HN id, I see, ha ha, to escape the result of
| your trolling or hate-spewing actions.
| mullingitover wrote:
| The point of wearing masks is mostly to prevent you from
| infecting others if you're already infected. They're somewhat
| effective at preventing infection but that's not what they're
| best at - if you're wearing a mask in a room with an
| unmasked, contagious case, you're still in danger.
| thedrbrian wrote:
| >If you're already infected.
|
| And if you've had it or been vaccinated?
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Requisition (symptoatic or asymptomatic), or simply
| acquiring viral particals and re-distributing them, are
| both possible.
|
| It's also far easier to establish (and verify) a "masks
| requried" policy (visual inspecition is sufficient) than
| a "masks or fully-completed vaccination schedule
| required" one.
|
| The ultimate goal isn't protecting _individual_ health
| but _public_ health, and here, social measures including
| distancing, quarantine, masks, sanitation (though perhaps
| less so than first thought), etc., all _reduce the
| probability of transmission through the population at
| large_.
|
| We're used to thinking of individual health. Public
| health is related, _but is not the same thing._ Logics
| and measures that are appropriate or sensible in the case
| of individual health may not be for public health. (And
| vice versa.)
|
| Public health is an emergent phenomenon of individual
| health.
| hesarenu wrote:
| Maybe they should advertise it like that. I and most i know
| are wearing thinking it would reduce our risk to exposure.
| nmridul wrote:
| I thought masks will reduce the viral load and lessens
| the severity of infection
| hesarenu wrote:
| I though the same. Maybe it has reduced the severity. It
| seems 99% of infections in Bangalore are asymptomatic.
| Actual number of infections might be very large.
| valarauko wrote:
| That's been the messaging around masks from the
| scientific community from the beginning, and also partly
| why they were hesitant to recommend universal masking
| early in the pandemic.
| devdas wrote:
| It was advertised like that. The mask deniers were
| louder.
| [deleted]
| megous wrote:
| You can increase your chances with a respirator. But finding
| a good quality one, certified with a proper standard (that
| doesn't just cover dust protection like KN95), verifying the
| certificate with certification company, and hoping it's still
| not a nice looking fake, one with some helping features that
| makes making the proper seal easier (like memory foam pad
| around the nose, or some rubber lining), best with a head
| band so that you can make it make seal better, is just way
| too hard, without spending a ton of money.
|
| And that ton of money may not be worth it if you're young
| enough, and lucky.
|
| I used 3 kinds so far, one was KN95 and just not sealing at
| all. Probably not much better than a typical "surgical mask",
| maybe even worse.
|
| Other was marked "FFP3", but without a certification that I
| could find independently. Much better seal with memory foam
| around nose, and an ear bands that can be connected behind
| your had. That one at least felt useful. ;)
|
| The last one is the most expensive so far, with an
| independently verifiable "FFP3" certificate, and a rubber
| lining for better seal with a proper headband. That one
| should be the best on paper. I have not used it yet.
|
| Anyway, if you look at independent tests of random protection
| equipment that's sold on the market and people buy, sometimes
| it doesn't even meet the stated specs. That's not encouraging
| either.
|
| I find navigating all this kinda tough, especially with some
| sellers proudly showing certificates which are obviously for
| something else than what they're selling, or blurring some
| information on the certificate, sometimes including the model
| information, lol.
|
| (That is for the use case of actually protecting yourself
| from airborne particles in risky situations, not just "your
| mask, my mask" thing sibling posters write about)
| loonster wrote:
| People don't understand that the area under the curve will
| remain the same. Mask or no mask, the same percentage of
| people will be needed to reach herd immunity.
|
| The only exception to this is vaccinations. They may give you
| immunity without being infected. (They are not without risk
| though.)
| Tepix wrote:
| Interesting, what kind of mask did you wear while going out
| for groceries?
| hawk_ wrote:
| haven't been keeping up with updates from there but what's with
| vaccinated people getting the disease? is that common there due
| double mutant variant(s)?
| gulabjamuns wrote:
| Some have only had one dose . Vaccination does not always
| prevent infection, but it does reduce severity of disease we
| are told.
| qart wrote:
| I don't know how much the mutations have to do with it. But
| the Indian studies show a reinfection rate of 4.5% [1].
| Apparently, it is common among the elderly [2]. Our CM is 78.
|
| [1] https://science.thewire.in/health/icmr-defines-interval-
| for-...
|
| [2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/covid-reinfection-
| rare-...
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| None of the vaccines are 100% effective. A 74% effective (at
| preventing symptoms) vaccine (like Oxford/AstraZeneca) means
| 26% of people can still get the disease (and likely some more
| can get infected, without getting disease symptoms). A 95%
| effective (at preventing symptoms) vaccine like the
| Pfizer/BioNTech one means 5% of people can still get symptoms
| (and likely some more can get infected, without getting
| disease symptoms).
|
| The vaccines effectiveness is (mostly) a factor of how well
| they prevent the disease COVID-19. It's NOT a direct
| indication of how well they prevent infection with SARS-
| CoV-2, since not all infections cause COVID-19 (some are
| asymptomatic) but it seems to be a reasonably close bound.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > 74% effective (at preventing symptoms)
|
| Preventing "moderate symptoms", which is enough symptoms
| that the typical person would stay home from work.
|
| "mild symptoms" means people notice they were more tired
| than usual, but otherwise didn't feel like it was bad
| enough to stay home.
|
| "Severe" symptoms, which means people went to a hospital to
| get treated.
|
| -----------
|
| The 74% and 95% numbers you quoted were against "moderate"
| symptoms in the Phase 3 trials. IIRC, all vaccines were
| 100% effective against "hospitalizations" and "death"
| (severe).
|
| -------
|
| With that being said, it seems like the asymptomatic
| effectiveness is something like 60% to 80% (depending on
| the vaccine). That is: if we constatly do COVID19 tests to
| check for ASYMPTOMATIC infection, we still see a major
| reduction in asymptomatic COVID19 in vaccinated
| individuals.
| qndreoi wrote:
| "IIRC, all vaccines were 100% effective against
| "hospitalizations" and "death" (severe)."
|
| Very close to 100%, but not quite. In US state of Ohio,
| 2.8 million vaccinated, 14 hospitalizations from
| breakthrough cases, all folks with multiple co-
| morbidities that would have killed them. So, 14/2.8
| million = about 99.9995 % over about two months.
| dragontamer wrote:
| The 100% figure was specific to the "in the Phase 3
| trials" tidbit I left in my post.
|
| Apologies if that was unclear. With only 30,000 people or
| 40,000 people in the phase 3 trial, its impossible to
| differentiate between 99.99% and 100%. We can only see
| how far above 99.99% we've gotten by deploying to the
| public.
| makomk wrote:
| Pretty sure it's worse than that. The number that
| dictates how accurate the "100% effective against
| hospitalizations and death" stat from the trials can be
| isn't the total number of people in the trial, it's the
| much smaller number of people in it who were hospitalized
| and died. In reality, I don't think that's enough to
| differentiate between 90% and 100%, and honestly it'd
| probably be pretty hard to rule out 80% either.
| dragontamer wrote:
| There have been 74 breakthrough COVID19 deaths in the USA
| so far. (Number of people who were vaccinated, but died
| of COVID19 anyway). 9 of those cases were not attributed
| to COVID19, but lets stick with the bigger 74 number for
| "steelman" purposes.
|
| In contrast, there have been anywhere from 1000 to 3000
| deaths PER DAY due to COVID19. The only question
| remaining is: how far back do we go to count COVID19
| deaths. Do you want to start in January, or do you want
| to start in February? Vaccination started in December,
| maybe we should include December deaths?
|
| The month of February 2021 was well in excess of 50,000
| COVID19 deaths. (2000 to 3000 COVID19 deaths per day
| every day through Feburary). Estimating that to a round
| number is ~70,000 or so.
|
| 74 breakout deaths vs 70,000-ish total deaths puts us in
| the 99% effective range already. And that's after I've
| "steelman" chosen lots of numbers not very favorable to
| my argument.
|
| It seems like a verifiable fact that the vaccines are
| well in excess of 99% effective against death. How much
| so (99.9% or 99.99%???) is a mystery to be left for
| someone who is better at analyzing these statistics.
|
| --------
|
| The USA is currently experiencing 700 deaths/day due to
| COVID19. Its not over. As the death count of the
| unvaccinated population rises day-after-day, it will only
| make the safety results of the vaccine more and more
| certain.
| sorokod wrote:
| I believe that 74% and 95% are efficacy values. The actual
| effective values would be lower.
| [deleted]
| vram22 wrote:
| What's the difference?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/what-difference-
| between-ef...
|
| >Efficacy is the degree to which a vaccine prevents
| disease, and possibly also transmission, under ideal and
| controlled circumstances - comparing a vaccinated group
| with a placebo group. Effectiveness meanwhile refers to
| how well it performs in the real world.
| vram22 wrote:
| Got it, and will check that link out, thanks.
| blake1 wrote:
| The initial tests prior to approval looked to see if severe
| infection could be reduced. Follow up studies have shown that
| they are also effective at preventing transmission.
|
| https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/yes-
| vacci...
| dheera wrote:
| Non-paywall link:
|
| https://californianewstimes.com/it-is-much-worse-this-time-i...
| Abishek_Muthian wrote:
| > All the more reason everyone should mask up
|
| Not just mask up, but do it with proper masks. Majority wear
| cloth masks in the country if at all they do because they were
| the ones which were available widely(affordable) during the
| first wave and that there were some data to suggest it's better
| than nothing.
|
| But many of those masks have worn out after repeated washing,
| I'm having a hard time making people switch to proper masks as
| they are not comfortable with them and naturally mask prices
| are starting to skyrocket again.
|
| Proper masks needs to be distributed through the PDS (Public
| Distribution System), During first wave cloth mask was
| distributed through that in my state.
|
| Then of course there's this,
|
| > Chin-mask
| wolfretcrap wrote:
| >While they deserve their share of blame, the ordinary people
| have only made matters worse. Chin-mask, no-mask, herbal
| "remedies", religious gatherings, weddings, engagements, naming
| ceremonies... the list goes on.
|
| Culture does not change in a day even at desperate times.
|
| Government should ban gathering and events.
|
| Even my extended family is planning to attend a wedding despite
| huge risk in doing so, why? In India attending someone's
| wedding is very important and basis for building social wealth.
| If you don't attend others wedding, they'll not attend yours.
| As simple as that, all families live in this fear of having no
| one attending wedding of their daughter or son that they take
| this massive risk to arrived at the wedding of their friends
| and relatives.
|
| Only strict government rule can fix this, otherwise I've heard
| misinformed people claiming that Coronavirus is just a hoax by
| government and no one is dying, why can't you attend the
| wedding if the everyone is coming. Unfortunately, you can't
| teach the people who hold this view, you only lose to them if
| you try to use reason.
| walshemj wrote:
| The UK changed culture around weddings and funerals see teh
| Late Prince Phillips funeral.
| jey wrote:
| The UK is very individualistic when compared to India. So
| the UK experience doesn't translate so readily.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| In the UK it was the funeral of a single dead rich guy and
| a singular instance. OP just said that weddings are the
| basis for societal wealth. Without an alternative in an
| already poor nation, how do you expect them just to change,
| shrug their shoulders and say oh well, guess we are poor
| forever now.
| walshemj wrote:
| Or stop treating women as cash cows maybe
| tim333 wrote:
| "Only strict government rule can fix this" kind of applies
| to the UK. We had quite a lot of rules and fines
| threatened.
| tedunangst wrote:
| Seems pretty unlikely the commoners banned from attending
| the funeral procession are worried the queen will fail to
| attend their own funeral now.
| walshemj wrote:
| They did stick to the 30 max attendees rules
| dataflow wrote:
| The situation is also horrible in Brazil (14M cases, 378k deaths,
| ICUs near full): https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/brazil-
| alarming-high-num...
|
| One can only wonder if it's simply a matter of time before
| variants break through vaccines in the US too.
| standardUser wrote:
| "One can only wonder..."
|
| You can do more than wonder! You can look at the facts and see
| no evidence that any variant to date can evade the existing
| vaccines to the point that they are no longer useful.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I've heard there's an Indian variant that affects vaccinated
| people in the UK; it's not as clear cut though, this article
| seems a bit uncertain about it atm:
| https://news.sky.com/story/is-the-indian-covid-variant-more-...
| collyw wrote:
| Keep believing the covid hype. they have said this about most
| of the variants, but I see no evidence of them actually being
| more deadly.
| nonamechicken wrote:
| Indian Council of Medical Research announced today that
| Covaxin is effective against several variants including
| B.1.617 (double mutant variant identified in certain regions
| of India and several other countries), B.1.1.7 (UK variant),
| B.1.1.28 (Brazil variant) and B.1.351 (Southern African
| variant).
|
| https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/icmr-says-
| covaxin-...
|
| https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/covaxin-
| shows-78-o...
|
| According to this Twitter person: https://twitter.com/sailorr
| ooscout/status/138482553989517312...
|
| >Covaxin is the inactivated virus-based COVID-19 vaccine
| being developed with Bharat Biotech and Covishield is the
| Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine being manufactured locally by the
| Serum Institute of India under that name.
|
| >So inactivated vaccines tend to have lower immunogenicity on
| average (when we look back on past vaccines). I would like to
| think if Covaxin neutralizes it, the others would likely do
| so as well. We will definitely need data but this is very
| promising
| FriendlyNormie wrote:
| Kill yourself you retarded NPC faggot fuck. Now.
| lamontcg wrote:
| Eventually there will be a variant which spreads epidemically
| in even a fully vaccinated population. But such an complete
| escape mutation is likely to come at a cost to fitness for the
| virus so it will be less transmissible and virulent. And in
| vaccinated individuals they will still have cross-reactive
| immune responses.
|
| The 1918 H1N1 pandemic just evolved into seasonal influenza (or
| co-evolved with the human immune system). In 1957 the H1N1
| virus left the human race and was displaced by H2N2. It mutated
| in pigs for 50 years, then the H1 protein came back in the 2009
| triple reassortment pandemic. That pandemic had minimal impact
| though because people who were exposed to H1N1 before 1957
| still had partial immunity through cross reactive T-cells to
| the H1 envelope protein -- even after it had evolved in pigs
| for 50 years.
|
| Immunity is very non-binary. There is "survivor island style
| immunity" which is sterilizing immunity that prevents an
| individual from being infected. But there's a lot of partial
| immunity that just takes the edge off the disease, even though
| the virus may still spread epidemically.
| blake1 wrote:
| And vaccine escape is non-binary as well. Variants able to do
| that may displace other variants, but be unable to push R0
| over 1 in a largely vaccinated population. The "South
| African" variant B1351 can break through Pfizer, but it does
| seem to be controllable.[1]
|
| A booster shot has already been developed, and I expect we'll
| be able to win the arms race against this virus.
|
| [1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.06.212548
| 82v...
| thehappypm wrote:
| Saying B1351 "breaks through" is just like saying the
| original strain "breaks through" Pfizer. Pfizer isn't 100%
| efficacious on the original strain, nor is it 0%. Same with
| B1351. Luckily for us, new strains are closer to 100% than
| 0%.
| lamontcg wrote:
| We've most likely already won the arms race against this
| virus. I'll take a variant booster if I'm offered one, but
| in a population where 60%-70% of the population is
| vaccinated and a good chunk of the rest have natural
| immunity I doubt any of the existing variants can spread.
| And if it does spread it is only a matter of time before
| there's enough immunity to push R0 below zero for all the
| existing variants.
|
| An actual immune-escaping variant is going to have to do
| more than just a few mutations and will have to
| substantially change along 20 or so different epitopes of
| the spike protein, which will almost certainly come at a
| cost to fitness.
|
| It probably will eventually do that and it'll become
| endemic, but won't be anywhere near as transmissible or
| virulent as it has been.
| Balgair wrote:
| Seeing how the 'original' SARS-COV2-19 virus spread, if you are
| concerned about a variant, then likely it's already in your
| population.
|
| The speed of the virus is much faster than the speed of the
| public health infrastructure. Maybe upping the tempo of our
| human controlled reaction is something we can focus on in this
| pandemic.
| dataflow wrote:
| The question isn't whether the variant is in the population
| (of course we can assume it is), the question is whether it
| differs enough from the prior variant to break through past
| immunization at the population level.
| xw013k611 wrote:
| India desperately needs some Leronlimab, 100X better than
| Remdesivir for severe/critical
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