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

Some good news regarding vaccination.

www.livemint.com/news/india/serum-eyes-early-nod-for-covovax-11619119544926.html

Oh and Covax is not an Indian vaccine it is the name they will call Novavax that there's been stage 3 trialling now crossover in the U.K USA and Mexico.

@Torvean

Oh and Covax is not an Indian vaccine it is the name they will call Novavax that there's been stage 3 trialling now crossover in the U.K USA and Mexico.

No it isn't. Covax is the global scheme to fund vaccinesv for countries that can't afford it: www.gavi.org/covax-facility. Covaxin is an Indian vaccine by Bharat Biotech that seems to have good efficacy against the new variant. Covishield is the Oxford vaccine made by Serum Institute rather than Astrazeneca due to an earlier deal with SII, it also seems to have good efficacy against the new variant.

The Novovax vaccine was to be called Covovax in India, but has been delayed until September.

Covax is not Covaxin.

Covaxin is the Indian manufactured vaccine by Bharat Biontech. I know. My mum got her second dose last week.

My dad got his second dose Covishield yesterday whilst I held my breath panicking as he waited amidst thronging crowds for it.

It sucks sucks sucks sucks to be an immigrant right now.

I just want to be with them.

@Tealightsandd

It has and does happen here PinkSparklyPussyCat The mass gatherings. People travelling from all over to London (which although not quite like India's awful situation has suffered more than 10,000 deaths, and like India saw overwhelmed hospitals). Mass gathering is not unique to India.

London hospitals were not overwhelmed in the same way. Patients were moved around the country to different trusts at times, but beds were found somewhere. Oxygen supplies were under threat, but held up. Nobody apphyxiated because their oxygen supply was suddenly cut off. Nobody had to beg for oxygen and medicines on social media or drive their sick relatives around numerous hospitals trying to get them admitted. It simply is not the same thing.

And we didn’t have to burn bodies in a make shift crematorium on waste land outside the hospital.

@Baileysforchristmas

And we didn’t have to burn bodies in a make shift crematorium on waste land outside the hospital.

Correct.

But we did expand mortuary provision considerably, including into tents, and had further plans for other places that could be co-opted.

We did so well in averting this - which is the inevitable consequaence if exponential rise is not prevented. The only thing that makes any difference in a largely unvaccinated population is breaking transmission chains (ie lockdown) which we have seen work in so many places. In time, vaccination should take over from need to lock down, though that is somewhat dependent on what variants emerge and when

There seems to be so much sensationalism on this thread. A deep current of "there but for the grace of God", much ineffectual hand-wringing and also a twinge of Schadenfreude. And all the usual trite"awful poverty" "bad hygiene" phrases being trotted out

The poster who said "the poor children just eat rice" WTF? I'm sure people still beleive there are snake charmers and elephants on the streets.

Yes India is suffering tragically but it happens when the medical infrastructure is overwhelmed. And it cuts across all strata of society not just the poor. When hospitals were drowning it Italy last year, I didn't hear anything about hygiene and crowded conditions. And Italy has more than its share of multi generational households.

It's not just MN. The Sky and BBC scenes and "reports"!! Just showing scenes of patients suffering in corridors and funeral pyres- how is this even edifying? Utterly invasive and in the poorest of tastes.

Yes I'm Indian and yes I'm defensive.

@Bluebird2021

humanitarian catastrophe which could have been lesser if masks/distancing were in use like many other countries

This is an extremely smug and uninformed comment. Masks in India anywhere outside the house have been mandatory since March 2020, and no excuses of poor mental health, medical conditions and so forth are accepted. The mask usage is not perfect- so much of the population can't even afford to replace their masks-but certainly more than in the UK. My local supermarket here still has people wandering through without masks and without lanyards.

Social distancing is very hard in a country of 1 billion where most people cannot do their jobs online and have to leave the house to make a living. There was a crowd in London yesterday to protest; what's their excuse? There were massive crowds the first day lockdown eased in Soho too.

All this schadenfreude may well come back to bite you in the face.

In the UK people died at home instead.

Tamil Nadu is locked down today, wonder how long it will last.

@Navigationcentral, I hope your parents stay safe. It must be hard to be so far away from them right now.

@Amrapaali, I understand your unease about some of the comments on this thread and about some of the reporting. There is a lot of stereotyping, which isn't helpful. And yes, some of the news coverage seems very intrusive, but to some extent, I think that was also the case during the peaks here in the UK and in Italy etc - I definitely felt then that individuals were being denied their privacy and dignity. It's very hard to watch.

Horrific, poor people of India, I can't see how it can be held back now but I hope there will be an international response to attempt to help. Additionally, it has spooked me. I know conditions here and there are entirely different and I'm being irrational but I'll be keeping the hand-wash, mask and distancing long past Bozo's release date.

This carnage is going to have deep reaching implications for years to come. God help the people of India.

@Amrapaali

There seems to be so much sensationalism on this thread. A deep current of "there but for the grace of God", much ineffectual hand-wringing and also a twinge of Schadenfreude. And all the usual trite"awful poverty" "bad hygiene" phrases being trotted out

The poster who said "the poor children just eat rice" WTF? I'm sure people still beleive there are snake charmers and elephants on the streets.

Yes India is suffering tragically but it happens when the medical infrastructure is overwhelmed. And it cuts across all strata of society not just the poor. When hospitals were drowning it Italy last year, I didn't hear anything about hygiene and crowded conditions. And Italy has more than its share of multi generational households.

It's not just MN. The Sky and BBC scenes and "reports"!! Just showing scenes of patients suffering in corridors and funeral pyres- how is this even edifying? Utterly invasive and in the poorest of tastes.

Yes I'm Indian and yes I'm defensive.

Absolutely right.

Why? I agree we should donate the excess but not the entire quota. What about people who've had the first dose for example?

As a previous poster said, why not the US? Why does it have to be the UK?

So now we have to wait for other countries to step in first do we?

Other countries have stepped in to help and India was going to supply over 100m doses to Covax, that won't happen now, at the very least, UK should make urgent donations of vaccine to Covax or we will see more India's around the world, donations of money won't help, India has plenty of that.

So now we have to wait for other countries to step in first do we?

That’s not what I said and you know it. We should be handing over excess vaccines while keeping our own vaccine rollout on track as should other countries, e.g. the US

humanitarian catastrophe which could have been lesser if masks/distancing were in use like many other countries

From everything that I've seen, mask wearing seems pretty ubiquitous, so I'm not really sure what the point of this comment was. Yes, there will be some people who don't bother, but that is the same in this country.

There have been some positive stories this morning about people on the ground doing their very best to help. The Sikh temple distributing oxygen to those who need it, for example.

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot

In the UK people died at home instead.

Tamil Nadu is locked down today, wonder how long it will last.

Yes. The UK has no moral high ground here. Covid patients were sent into care homes.

Seriously though. Why is America holding on to vaccines they don't even want or need (AZ)? Why won't they send them?

@Tealightsandd

Seriously though. Why is America holding on to vaccines they don't even want or need (AZ)? Why won't they send them?

I think that’s a question neighbouring countries (Mexico and Canada specifically) have been asking for some weeks.

@Moondust001

Apologies . My post came across incorrectly . We were told here that younger people were not at risk of serious illness unless they were obese . Or had serious underlying illness. To be honest in the beginning I could not understand why India was not hit harder . I was just surprised at the percentage of younger people seriously ill .

I see the uk is sending aid today and presumably India are part of the Covax scheme .
But at the moment things certainly look dire .

@jasjas1973

I thought countries donated funds and then Covax organise distribution and assess the need for the vaccines ?

I am not sure it’s easy to donate vaccines from each country , surely it comes from the manufactures and has to be organised properly?

People did suffocate at home during the first lockdown after not being taken to hospital by the ambulance because of what essentially was triage to prevent uk hospitals from being overwhelmed.
It is true that it wasn’t in any way close to India’s scale just let’s not forget that this happened (and how just weeks before that UK didn’t want to impose lockdown).

Completely agree @Kishkashta. I think there are a lot of people very privileged to be in a position that the effects of covid are an abstract concept so they can keep it separate. We only have circa 4 million cases so it’s understandable that it’s completely passed some by. It’s just sad that they don’t see the absolute success of that for what it is and how they have benefited.