India

[Baileysforchristmas]

How on earth are India going to get there numbers down? If they impose to harsher lockdown people will starve to death. I think virus was quietly spreading in February when everyone was saying how well India was doing.

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/21/delhi-warns-hospitals-running-out-of-oxygen-amid-indias-devastating-covid-wave

Sky News is reporting from outside a hospital in India, they have run out of space inside, they are trying to treat patients in the queue outside, and the reporter has witnessed at least six die in that queue in the short time they have been there.

It only seems like 5 minutes ago, though it's actually about a year, when India was being hailed as highly successful in its pandemic response, and we were being urged to learn from them.

How hard a country is hit seems to be by randomchance of what variant.

And until the world is vaccinated, the only thing that works is lockdown.

And the human cost when you can't or won't lockdown is horrendous. When health services are overwhelmed, it's a tragedy - both for those with covid and everyone else with other health needs

I saw that report too @vera99. Heartbreaking.

It seems clear that the death toll is being hugely underreported. We might never really know how many people have fallen victim to this pandemic.

I can't imagine how frightening it must be for those poor people, and their loved ones, stuck outside the hospitals waiting for a bed. They must feel so helpless, and so abandoned by the authorities.

I don’t think we were seeing the true numbers from India though, I think it was spreading silently, maybe because it’s a younger population and it took a while to see people getting sick, the data from India on infection, health and death is never going to be a true figure as the data isn’t there, some one said on here times the number by 10, well if that’s the case it’s not 300,000 new infections a day, it’s 3 million, frightening

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/22/india-hits-global-record-of-315000-new-daily-cases-as-covid-wave-worsens

I was listening to an interview with an Indian lady earlier who said that their testing facilities are at capacity and there are lots of reports of people completely unable to access a test. She was quite convinced the reported numbers are the tip of the iceberg.

I feel desperately sorry for Indian citizens right now and very grateful we haven’t experienced the heights of what this virus can do here.

With the level of community transmission testing is almost irrelevant. Regard every other person as a possible vector of infection and symptomatic people will be just that.

It's heartbreaking - just awful.

[quote Frequentflier]Vaccinations in India have always been free until this vile government came into power. We defeated polio and smallpox with free vaccines. It's now a mishmash of free and paid for different ages and in different states.

One thing that the US, UK and other richer countries need to do is stop blocking patent waivers for vaccines. Nobody is safe until everybody is safe. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/18/patent-waiver-covid-vaccines-uk-variants

The US is also hoarding vaccines it will not use. www.msnbc.com/opinion/u-s-can-t-keep-hoarding-covid-19-vaccines-world-n1263581[/quote]
I had a thread last week about patent waiver. The White House has been considering it.

www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/03/26/covid-vaccine-updates-white-house-mulls-lifting-intellectual-property-shield.html

Looks like It's the UK strain that's causing a lot of the misery in India.

www.ndtv.com/india-news/coronavirus-delhi-uk-strain-driving-covid-surge-in-delhi-reveals-data-2420508

Incidentally, why aren't we being told where in the UK the Indian strain has been found/is spreading?

Where have people found data on the spread of the Indian variant? I thought there was only a hundred or so identified cases in the U.K. and assumed they were likely travel and direct/household contacts mainly given there’s no apparent urgency from the Govt. in comparison to the response to SA variants in London and Birmingham recently.

Lack of good nutrition no doubt which as we know will weaken immune system. Lots of young children raised on mainly rice I’m afraid 😟

@lurker101

Where have people found data on the spread of the Indian variant? I thought there was only a hundred or so identified cases in the U.K. and assumed they were likely travel and direct/household contacts mainly given there’s no apparent urgency from the Govt. in comparison to the response to SA variants in London and Birmingham recently.

I saw something in a Sky news article that was trying to be scandalised with a quote that 3 cases had not travelled abroad. Didn't confirm they weren't household members! Then had a quote from a random scientist to say "oooh if there's one case of community transmission that means actually 5 or 10, just look at South Africa where it's 500 cases now". I didn't pay it enough attention to be concerned because it looked like shock value rather than news.

I heartbroken for India. I have several friends with family in Delhi and they just feel helpless.

Can we help, anyone know where can we donate to help them get more ventilators or something. I had a search but want to be sure it'll go to the right place.

@Carolenarua

Can we help, anyone know where can we donate to help them get more ventilators or something. I had a search but want to be sure it'll go to the right place.

I ve written to my MP asking that the UK donate oxygen/ppe/test kits and most importantly vaccines. I believe the UN envoy on Covid has also asked countries with a well advanced vaccine program to give vaccine.

Agree on the numbers, World Service this morning saying the death rate is far in excess of what is being reported, due to a complete lack of testing.

Just read the news updates on India, truly a sad situation there at the moment. Also read their neighbour's, Pakistan, has a charity that has offered to help them by sending ambulances and staff.
Tension has always run hight between these two countries but hoping in their time if need, India accepts the offer!

@Sendsystemsucks the situation in India is dreadful, however that video is from the gas leak in Andhra Pradesh last year. You can see sections of it in this news report from May

m.youtube.com/watch?v=zif71NhgKgk

The scenes in India are why China shut down their economy for two months, and during their biggest festival. When you have a population that large, shit can hit the fan very very quickly.

It would help if Biden ended the US export ban on some of the raw materials required to make vaccines. Also if America sent some of their unwanted vaccines over.

according to www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table

For the past seven days India is currently 60th for positive cases per 1million of population and 67th for deaths per 1 million of population

the biggest problem India faces is that its health service cannot cope and sadly it looks likely that this situation will continue for a while.

They are vaccinating over 2 million a day but have barely done 10% of the population so far. Hopefully the vaccinations will be start to have an impact soon.

For the past seven days India is currently 60th for positive cases per 1million of population and 67th for deaths per 1 million of population

I don't believe those figures for a minute. The images coming out of India don't tally with the numbers at all.

The overall cases/deaths per million probably are lower than many countries, partly because it's a huge population and the outbreaks are concentrated in specific areas. But I'm certain that the numbers are way higher than the official figures suggest.

They reckon 10 times higher, so a daily infection rate of 300,000 is actually 3 million 😮

So what’s the deaths, 16 million? So that’s more like 160 million.

@Baileysforchristmas

So what’s the deaths, 16 million? So that’s more like 160 million.

Thats total sensationalism!, sure the numbers are higher than reported but 160m deaths? Pls don't be ridiculous.

There has been 3m CV deaths worldwide according to the WHO.