India's denial of community transmission may come back to haunt it

[masterchief_mirza]

I remain firmly of the opinion that India downplayed community transmission for a month or so and instead highlighted "imported" or "foreign" cases only via its heavily influenced media and its own health ministry announcements.

Not only were such cases kept in the national spotlight in terms of publicity, but the testing infrastructure and protocols remained heavily geared towards targeting and identifying cases and clusters with some identifiable connection to foreign travel. For a time, no Covid19 update in India's major press outlets was complete without the customary qualifying statement regarding which case or contact of the new cluster had travelled abroad, along with details of the destination.

One can but speculate as to the motivation behind such a deliberate and uniform policy but generalised hindutva nationalist fervour would certainly have contributed to and guided the decision makers in the upper echelons of India's state apparatus in this regard.

Modi knows the mindset of most of India because that is the mindset of his electorate. He has ridden the crest of the wave of such nationalism to enable multiple controversial majoritarian Hindu nationalist policy decisions over the last year. Having irreversibly bonded his own political persona with this fierce brand of Hindu nationalist fervour amongst his electorate, India now faced the prospect of a viral epidemic of proportions never seen before in the modern era.

Damming new data from cases studied between 15th Feb and 19th Mar (a period when significant community transmission was denied by Delhi) apparently confirms 40% community transmission of positive cases.

The question Indian citizens who profess to being unblinded and unblinkered by naive patriotism must now ask is "why?".

Why did their government facilitate a convenient position of denial and misdirection of public trust into an apparently self-serving agenda of detachment from responsibility, mitigation of culpability and abrogation of any need for concerted, timely, nationwide action?

Ref:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-52242806

"Doctors now believe that the infection was spreading in the community long before the government admitted to it, and testing slowly ramped up. Until two weeks ago, Indian health authorities had been denying community transmission.

ImageThe hospital in Indore has more than 140 patients

Now a new study by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) using surveillance data from 41 labs in the country has hinted at community transmission: 52 districts in 20 states and union territories reported Covid-19 patients. Some 40% of the cases did not report any history of international travel or contact with a known case. (The survey was based on swabs collected from nearly 6,000 patients between 15 February and 19 March. Of them 104 tested positive for Covid-19)"

 

[N.Siddiqui]

...turned into a green Muslim Coronavirus.

 

[masterchief_mirza]

@Mangus Ortus Novem @PakSword @Dual Wielder @Pan-Islamic-Pakistan @SIPRA @StormBreaker @UKBengali @xeuss @Juggernaut_Flat_Plane_V8 @Chhatrapati

 

[xeuss]

Articles like these do not matter for the bhakts that firmly entrenched in their minds that Muslims spread the coronavirus. No amount of counter-evidence or reason will sway their minds.

You have seen evidence of that on this forum as well.

 

[Cinder]

You know I never found out how and why India is such a wierd nation.


Its almost as if the janta wants to be actively lied to just so they can claim superiority. Insert spreading of the virus by Muslims, downing of F-16, that Kashmiris are all terrorists, Pakistanis are all terrorists, etc...

There were large numbers of Indians online making fun of the fact that Pakistan was the epicenter of COVID-19 in South Asia...until they themselves became the epicenter.

What a vile nation. I feel disgusted to say that they are our neigbbors. I hope one day we take Kashmir and just cut off all communication with this .... this.... "nation"

 

[PakSword]

I remain firmly of the opinion that India downplayed community transmission for a month or so and instead highlighted "imported" or "foreign" cases only via its heavily influenced media and its own health ministry announcements.

Not only were such cases kept in the national spotlight in terms of publicity, but the testing infrastructure and protocols remained heavily geared towards targeting and identifying cases and clusters with some identifiable connection to foreign travel. For a time, no Covid19 update in India's major press outlets was complete without the customary qualifying statement regarding which case or contact of the new cluster had travelled abroad, along with details of the destination.

One can but speculate as to the motivation behind such a deliberate and uniform policy but generalised hindutva nationalist fervour would certainly have contributed to and guided the decision makers in the upper echelons of India's state apparatus in this regard.

Modi knows the mindset of most of India because that is the mindset of his electorate. He has ridden the crest of the wave of such nationalism to enable multiple controversial majoritarian Hindu nationalist policy decisions over the last year. Having irreversibly bonded his own political persona with this fierce brand of Hindu nationalist fervour amongst his electorate, India now faced the prospect of a viral epidemic of proportions never seen before in the modern era.

Damming new data from cases studied between 15th Feb and 19th Mar (a period when significant community transmission was denied by Delhi) apparently confirms 40% community transmission of positive cases.

The question Indian citizens who profess to being unblinded and unblinkered by naive patriotism must now ask is "why?".

Why did their government facilitate a convenient position of denial and misdirection of public trust into an apparently self-serving agenda of detachment from responsibility, mitigation of culpability and abrogation of any need for concerted, timely, nationwide action?

Ref:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-52242806

"Doctors now believe that the infection was spreading in the community long before the government admitted to it, and testing slowly ramped up. Until two weeks ago, Indian health authorities had been denying community transmission.

ImageThe hospital in Indore has more than 140 patients

Now a new study by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) using surveillance data from 41 labs in the country has hinted at community transmission: 52 districts in 20 states and union territories reported Covid-19 patients. Some 40% of the cases did not report any history of international travel or contact with a known case. (The survey was based on swabs collected from nearly 6,000 patients between 15 February and 19 March. Of them 104 tested positive for Covid-19)"

The community spread was bound to happen. Increase in testing will bring the real figures.

 

[Chhatrapati]

One can but speculate as to the motivation behind such a deliberate and uniform policy but generalised hindutva nationalist fervour would certainly have contributed to and guided the decision makers in the upper echelons of India's state apparatus in this regard.

Stopped reading after this. The usual Hindutva and Modi stuff. What the writer doesn't know or carefully ignore is, Modi government is not the one who calls shots here. The health along with the law and order is the subject of state government much like in the US, Central government has only an advisory role like providing them with funds, regulating the supply of medicines, test kits, ventilators and ppes. Modi had no power to declare a lockdown either, only because the state governments obeyed his orders (which was the logical step) it became a lockdown. In short it's a coordinated effort. Some state governments may be successful in stopping the spread, some may be weaker. Now politics part, internationally, if any state government fails the blame will be on Modi and the state when it comes to local politics. Modi played by the books so far.