India's race against time to save doctors

[padamchen]

And you are up to date on ICMR strategy, analysis and optimisation regarding this?

@padamchen

He's sulking.

Pity.

I thought our brothers were men.

If you are somehow insinuating that the COVID death toll in India is less because of inadequate testing then it's a misinformed rant. Testing guidelines were amended long back in the country to subject all cases of pneumonia/SARI to RT-PCR.

Unlike China, it will be impossible to hide death toll in a country like India. We are doing well till now owing to the proactive steps undertaken by our Central and respective state governments.

I have first hand information about how contact tracing of confirmed cases were completed within hours and all of them taken to quarantine. It's been a herculean task considering the area and population of our country.

Once this pandemic is done with, countries and organisations will line up to commend us on a job well done.

Keep up the good work bro.

 

[namefield_empty]

While admitting it can be inaccurate:

Your sense of comprehension has gone haywire.

I told you that India's testing guidelines are in sync with the rest of the world.

To which you brought up the unnecessary correlation between Covid and some of its cardiac manifestations.

In reply, i educated you about the most commonly affected system and most frequent cause of death from the disease.

After which you went off on a tangent..

So according to you heart patients should be subjected to diagnostic tests first, as a few critical cases of the disease may exhibit them in the terminal stage.

Dumb logic, very reassuring that people like you are not in the helm of things.

 

[Cthulhu]

I told you that India's testing guidelines are in sync with the rest of the world.

Good, India's testing guidelines are in sync with the rest of the world, And compare to the rest of the world, India is doing 0.1 COVID-19 tests per 1,000 people, Low tests, Low numbers.

 

[nahtanbob]

Good, India's testing guidelines are in sync with the rest of the world, And compare to the rest of the world, India is doing 0.1 COVID-19 tests per 1,000 people, Low tests, Low numbers.

Maybe there is a low incidence of Covid-19 for now. HIV was not an epidemic in India for 5-6 years after it hit USA.
The longer you go without a vaccine/medical drugs there is a serious chance of a New York style scenarios in Indian cities.

 

[masterchief_mirza]

Your sense of comprehension has gone haywire.

I told you that India's testing guidelines are in sync with the rest of the world.

To which you brought up the unnecessary correlation between Covid and some of its cardiac manifestations.

In reply, i educated you about the most commonly affected system and most frequent cause of death from the disease.

After which you went off on a tangent..

So according to you heart patients should be subjected to diagnostic tests first, as a few critical cases of the disease may exhibit them in the terminal stage.

Dumb logic, very reassuring that people like you are not in the helm of things.

They are now, but it's much too late to accelerate testing in a bid to restrict spread. It's you who is failing to grasp that the Korean and Chinese models were reliant on early admission of community spread, early cluster tracing and early massive testing. You can accelerate testing now, which is still helpful in terms of determination of resource allocation, however it won't be possible to contain massive spread due to: early failure to test anyone outside the stubborn criteria of "foreign travel" or "known contacts". Koreans and Chinese hunted for symptomatic cases, not just those with contact history/travel history. Indeed, India isn't the only nation to have played the early strategy incorrectly, Britain also blundered with early guidelines.

The point being made is that if India suddenly tested everyone, the numbers of infected would be immense.

You yourself were defending the position of your government early on claiming there was no need to test loads of people and there was no evidence of asymptomatic community transmission and no evidence of longer incubation periods than the documented 14 days so quarantine can be limited to that period. Practically all of these criteria were proved incorrect and reliance on such modelling rendered premature. This was a new disease and an overly cautious approach early on was actually appropriate.

As for why the death rate is relatively low across south Asia is unclear and may be due to the nature of the genetic strain prevalent here or other reasons. For now, India, pak, bd, SL may regard themselves lucky in terms of death rates, but let's not pretend Indian public health strategy was correct from day 1. Certainly it seems better now. But early denials of reality about the spread of pandemic viruses (read: there's no community spread, honest) were pretty comical.

 

[namefield_empty]

It's you who is failing to grasp that the Korean and Chinese models were reliant on early admission of community spread, early cluster tracing and early massive testing.

Koreans and Chinese hunted for symptomatic cases, not just those with contact history/travel history

Symptomatic cases won't just appear out of the blue.

Such patients present with the well recognised symptoms and signs of Cov-2 infection- fever, cough and dyspnea.

By screening/diagnosing all cases of the above mentioned symptoms (other than Covid) we are ensuring that the process is comprehensive.

Importance of early cluster tracing of contacts and their prompt diagnosis has already been emphasized before in an earlier post. Hundreds of suspected cases from a single cluster along with their high-risk contacts were identified and quarantined within hours, just an example from my place. Same is happening in every nook and corner of India.

Together with strict enforcement of a nation wide lockdown, this is a winning strategy.

Honestly speaking from the perspective of a health care professional, i am disappointed with the way our immediate neighbours went about with their uncoordinated and half hearted quarantine protocol.

 

[padamchen]

Symptomatic cases won't just appear out of the blue.

Such patients present with the well recognised symptoms and signs of Cov-2 infection- fever, cough and dyspnea.

By screening/diagnosing all cases of the above mentioned symptoms (other than Covid) we are ensuring that the process is comprehensive.

Importance of early cluster tracing of contacts and their prompt diagnosis has already been emphasized before in an earlier post. Hundreds of suspected cases from a single cluster along with their high-risk contacts were identified and quarantined within hours, just an example from my place. Same is happening in every nook and corner of India.

Together with strict enforcement of a nation wide lockdown, this is a winning strategy.

Honestly speaking from the perspective of a health care professional, i am disappointed with the way our immediate neighbours went about with their uncoordinated and half hearted quarantine protocol.

Need to be super careful with people coming in under CAA in the weeks and months to come.

 

[namefield_empty]

Need to be super careful with people coming in under CAA in the weeks and months to come.

From what little i know, CAA isn't going to bring a single new Bangladeshi to my state. Those already present here as refugees for many decades will be conferred with citizenship.

But border enforcement and vigil has been strengthened to prevent infiltration of illegal miyas, as you well know. Bangladesh and Myanmar is in a bad shape, from what i have learnt.

 

[masterchief_mirza]

Korea 486,000 tests by Apr 8. First case was 20th Jan.

India 128,000 tests by Apr 8. First case was 30th Jan.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/wap.bu...india-fares-versus-others-120040901595_1.html

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/latest-on-...-19-testing-ratio-per-country-million/1800124

Symptomatic cases won't just appear out of the blue.

Such patients present with the well recognised symptoms and signs of Cov-2 infection- fever, cough and dyspnea.

By screening/diagnosing all cases of the above mentioned symptoms (other than Covid) we are ensuring that the process is comprehensive.

Herein lies the specific problem. India repeatedly denied community transmission for more than a month and a half since the first case.

"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)" article dated 10th April BBC website.

By declaring through official press releases, health ministry communication and a willingly blind media that touts the official unscientific narrative of "no evidence of community transmission", India taught itself to ignore mild locally derived cases which didn't even end up seeing the doctor for further questioning/triage or get tested but simply carried on with business as usual for a month and a half before any lockdown (remember, first confirmed case was 30th Jan). The nation, the media and the citizens hunted for foreigners, travel returnees, contacts of known cases (and of course any Muslims who put a foot wrong as is the SOP during such times) but forgot that community transmission was a given. Add to this the hundred million migrant workers swarming transport hubs and villages.

There can be little question really that Covid spread silently throughout Feb and March.

That death rate is exceptionally low is remarkable.

 

[Nilgiri]

Testing guidelines were amended long back in the country to subject all cases of pneumonia/SARI to RT-PCR.

LOL, they still don't get what this means.... they just got to keep droning same NPC response.