Covid-19: India lacks capacity to stop the contagion but Indians are unlikely to complain

[Nilu Pule]

Currently, the number must be around 2 million. The writer is either an idiot, or high on some good shit.

Aakar Patel is Muslim male version of Rana Ayyub. An Islamist in Secular's clothing

 

[SrNair]

Quite a sad state of affairs. I hope Modi and his RSS goons catch it.

How many cases reported in Pakistan?

DAWN Pakistan printed this useful article and Indians are triggered, hitting a raw nerve...the comments are full of vitriol and hate, though this is a Reuters report...

Poor Indians flee to villages as coronavirus measures take heavy toll
Reuters March 21, 2020

Migrant workers and their families board an overcrowded passenger train, after government imposed restrictions on public gatherings in attempts to prevent spread of coronavirus disease (Covid-19), in Mumbai, March 21, 2020. —Reuters
Thousands of poor city migrants whose livelihoods have collapsed due to India’s coronavirus measures headed back to their villages on Saturday, raising fears that the exodus could carry the virus to the countryside.

About one fifth of India’s 271 confirmed coronavirus cases has been reported in the western state of Maharashtra — home to Mumbai, the country’s largest city and economic powerhouse. So far, India has registered four deaths due to the virus.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged Indians to stay at home to fight the outbreak. Maharashtra state authorities ordered on Friday the closure of all shops and offices, apart from those providing essential services, until March 31.

For Indians who drive rickshaws or run food stalls, the economic shock of such control measures has been huge, pushing them to leave for family homes where they typically do not pay rent and food is cheaper.

"Work has stopped. I’ll go back and work on the farm," said Rakesh Kumar Gupta, 40, who sells mosquito nets and was heading back to his family house in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

On Saturday, hundreds of people, many young men wearing masks and lugging backpacks, jostled in long queues to board trains at Mumbai’s Lokmanya Tilak Terminus station.

India’s state-run railway operator laid on 17 special train services starting on Friday to ferry people out of the Mumbai area to eastern and northern India, spokesman Shivaji Sutar said.

Health specialists say large-scale population shifts to rural areas could hasten the spread of coronavirus in India, a country of 1.3 billion people with weak public health care — especially in the countryside.

India has about 120 million migrant laborers, according to labour rights group Aajiveeka.

"This really is the beginning of community spread, assuming there haven’t been forerunners," said Dr Rajib Dasgupta, a professor of community health at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

The Indian Railways spokesman said they were screening passengers and had trained workers on board in case of emergencies. But anxious travelers were cramming into overcrowded trains, according to a Reuters witness, likely increasing the chances of infection.

Highlighting the risk, the Ministry of Railways on Saturday tweeted that a dozen people who had traveled by train in the last few days had tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday.

"Passengers are advised to avoid non-essential travel for the safety of fellow citizens," the ministry added.

India’s Health Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1542664/p...lages-as-coronavirus-measures-take-heavy-toll

At end ,it seems Indians will absolutely control the
disease .
And some of neighbours will me a in meat grinder.
Because none of them have enough time to look their own nation.

 

[prashantazazel]

The writer missed it by a factor of somewhere between 10 to 20.
Some old numbers(only government hospitals)

https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1539877



Then there would be private hospitals.

We are still way behind a decent bed/hospital to patient ratio. Hopefully, this crisis will force the government to increase the numbers.
Coming few weeks will test us.

 

[khansaheeb]

China should built more and more such capacities and drugs against infectious diseases at China will need it most because China is emerging as the abof many such illnesses which were found in animals only because of their passion of the food which is is not eaten anywhere Such as snakes Cockroaches, bats, rats, frogs, dogs, cats etc.

Chinese don't eat cockroaches, stop spreading lies:-

Chinese people eat snakes and do not eat cockroaches, because cockroaches are nauseous insects carrying the virus, and snakes can make delicious food in Chinese hands. If you don't know it, you won't believe that it is a snake.

China should built more and more such capacities and drugs against infectious diseases at China will need it most because China is emerging as the abof many such illnesses which were found in animals only because of their passion of the food which is is not eaten anywhere Such as snakes Cockroaches, bats, rats, frogs, dogs, cats etc.

 

[Kaniska]

Aakar Patel is Muslim male version of Rana Ayyub. An Islamist in Secular's clothing

He is not secular...period..

 

[Surya 1]

because cockroaches are nauseous insects carrying the virus,

This is true for bats as well and you must be knowing that Corona came from consuming Bat soup by Chinese.

 

[PradoTLC]

Covid-19: India lacks capacity to stop the contagion but Indians are unlikely to complain
With one-third of India living in single rooms, self-quarantine is not possible. State capacity is limited. But Indians, used to misery, are fatalists and will take the epidemic in their stride
Aakar Patel
Published: 22 Mar 2020, 8:30 AM

The population of India in the first census of 1872 was 206,162,360. Meaning 20.61 Crore on the subcontinent, including what is today Bangladesh and Pakistan. In 1881, this rose by 23% to 25.38 Crore. Some of this was due to an increase in population and some due to the increase in territory controlled by the British, which kept expanding over the years. In 1911, the population grew by 7% over the decade to 31 Crore.

However, in 1921, after 10 years it remained at 31 Crore.

Why did the population not grow over an entire decade? The answer is an H1N1 virus which is called the Spanish Influenza. This was an epidemic like the Coronavirus and it killed off the entire population growth of a decade in India. Around 1.5 crore people and most likely more than that were killed by it.

The flu came to India from Europe, where it broke out in military hospitals towards the end of the first world war. We don’t know how it originated but it is possible that it was transferred from birds or animals being slaughtered for the armies’ messes. Indian regiments which fought for the British empire returned to Bombay after Germany surrendered in 1918 and the fighting ended. They brought the virus with them, just as those coming from abroad have brought the Coronavirus.

Many nations had fought the war including the United States and so the returning soldiers took the disease around the world. It is thought that 25% of the world’s population was infected and probably killed around 10% of those infected.

These are very high rates of both transmission and of fatality and that is what we are faced today with the Coronavirus. The problem with a new virus is that it has no cure.

There is no medicine that can be taken, and it has the ability to spread very rapidly as we are seeing in India today.

Person A is infected and may or may not show symptoms, he passes them on to the people he has been near, and they pass the virus on to the people they come in contact with. And all this happens on the same day. There is no decrease in the lethality of the virus as it passes from one person to another and the virus does not dilute.

There are ways in which the chain of the spreading can be halted and that is to end contact between all people as far as possible. This ensures that those who are infected have the time for the disease to pass through their system. Some survive and others will not. But the isolation ensures that even those who are infected keep the disease to themselves. The point of isolation is not the benefit of the patient but the others around him.

China halted the spread of Coronavirus through lockdowns of entire cities. People were banned from travelling outside their homes. The government ensured that food was supplied to each home by trained people. In Europe, it is not possible for democratic states to order or enforce absolute shutdowns like China. This is the reason that the spread of the virus in Italy and now Spain is faster and the death rate higher than in China. Of course Europeans have been practising social distancing and self-quarantine as we have seen in the videos, but this is not as effective as a total lockdown.

On Friday, in Italy (which has a population of less than Gujarat) 627 people died and another 6,000 cases of Coronavirus infection were recorded. Just in one day. And unless the chain is broken, or the virus itself mutates into something less infectious and less lethal, the infection spreads exponentially.

We are familiar with exponential growth through the story of the man who asks the King to give him one grain of rice for the first square of the chessboard, then double it with each square. That sequence produces 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024 and 2048 by just the 12th square. Now assume that these are people and the 1 represents the first infected person entering the country. By the time you reach the 64th square, everybody has been infected except a few. This is what will happen with Coronavirus.

The Prime Minister said we should break the chain of transmission for a few hours on one day, Sunday. This is not a solution. The fact is that India has no defence against Coronavirus. One third of all Indians live in one room. Another one third live in 2 rooms.

They cannot self-quarantine or isolate themselves and if infected, they will pass it on to others.

It is impossible for India to control an epidemic. We do not have the state capacity of China to deliver food by trained and protected individuals to each home and order everyone to stay at home. That will not happen in India.

We also do not have the healthcare to save those who will be infected and can be saved medically because we do not have the capacity there either. India spends four times on defence of what it does on health. Last year, the government gave only Rs 3200 crore to Ayushman Bharat (what is called Modicare). We spent Rs 59,000 crore only on 36 Rafale fighters. India has 70,000 hospital beds and only a few ventilators.

Those infected who might be able to be saved in another country will die in India. This is a fact and we will learn of this very soon as we confront a disease that will kill not in numbers alone but a fraction of the population. The world will notice that India cannot stop the spread of the contagion and there will be consequences of that which we shall soon see and they will not be good for us.

The good thing about India, which perhaps no other country has, is our fatalism. We are so accustomed to extreme deprivation, misery and loss that there will be no revolution, no social upheaval as hundreds of thousands of people will die.

Those of us that survive this plague will carry on just as the survivors of the Spanish Influenza did a century ago.

https://www.nationalheraldindia.com...ontagion-but-indians-are-unlikely-to-complain

Poor India... feel sorry

I don't know what kind a fools India can ever be a competitor to China

 

[khansaheeb]

This is true for bats as well and you must be knowing that Corona came from consuming Bat soup by Chinese.

The Chinese boil the bat soup so much the virus dies, so I doubt the bat soup is the cause.

 

[Surya 1]

The Chinese boil the bat soup so much the virus dies, so I doubt the bat soup is the cause.

Possibly, some Chinese would have boiled it less or might have tried soup without boiling.

 

[khansaheeb]

Possibly, some Chinese would have boiled it less or might have tried soup without boiling.

 

[IndoCarib]

DAWN Pakistan printed this useful article and Indians are triggered, hitting a raw nerve...the comments are full of vitriol and hate, though this is a Reuters report...

Poor Indians flee to villages as coronavirus measures take heavy toll
Reuters March 21, 2020

Migrant workers and their families board an overcrowded passenger train, after government imposed restrictions on public gatherings in attempts to prevent spread of coronavirus disease (Covid-19), in Mumbai, March 21, 2020. —Reuters
Thousands of poor city migrants whose livelihoods have collapsed due to India’s coronavirus measures headed back to their villages on Saturday, raising fears that the exodus could carry the virus to the countryside.

About one fifth of India’s 271 confirmed coronavirus cases has been reported in the western state of Maharashtra — home to Mumbai, the country’s largest city and economic powerhouse. So far, India has registered four deaths due to the virus.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged Indians to stay at home to fight the outbreak. Maharashtra state authorities ordered on Friday the closure of all shops and offices, apart from those providing essential services, until March 31.

For Indians who drive rickshaws or run food stalls, the economic shock of such control measures has been huge, pushing them to leave for family homes where they typically do not pay rent and food is cheaper.

"Work has stopped. I’ll go back and work on the farm," said Rakesh Kumar Gupta, 40, who sells mosquito nets and was heading back to his family house in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

On Saturday, hundreds of people, many young men wearing masks and lugging backpacks, jostled in long queues to board trains at Mumbai’s Lokmanya Tilak Terminus station.

India’s state-run railway operator laid on 17 special train services starting on Friday to ferry people out of the Mumbai area to eastern and northern India, spokesman Shivaji Sutar said.

Health specialists say large-scale population shifts to rural areas could hasten the spread of coronavirus in India, a country of 1.3 billion people with weak public health care — especially in the countryside.

India has about 120 million migrant laborers, according to labour rights group Aajiveeka.

"This really is the beginning of community spread, assuming there haven’t been forerunners," said Dr Rajib Dasgupta, a professor of community health at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

The Indian Railways spokesman said they were screening passengers and had trained workers on board in case of emergencies. But anxious travelers were cramming into overcrowded trains, according to a Reuters witness, likely increasing the chances of infection.

Highlighting the risk, the Ministry of Railways on Saturday tweeted that a dozen people who had traveled by train in the last few days had tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday.

"Passengers are advised to avoid non-essential travel for the safety of fellow citizens," the ministry added.

India’s Health Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1542664/p...lages-as-coronavirus-measures-take-heavy-toll