India potential risk to the world

[Thewiseoneincognito]

I am horrified to see how covid is ravaging India and it’s fragile health system. The poor people of that country are in the grips of a nightmare and all we can do is sit, watch and hope they get through this.

I think we should be keeping an eye on the effects this could have on stability in India. My concern is If this topples into mass chaos and a breakdown of their society then we may be witnessing the start of a big headache for the wider global community. So many factors are against them, population density, poor sanitation, poverty, corruption, the list goes on.

I hope I am proven wrong but the situation looks to be very grim and seems to be just getting started. The whole world needs to help them NOW!

This is not true. The expectation is that it will have similar vaccine evasion to the SA and Brazilian strains, and it is now a variant of concern - that's why they're surge testing for it!!

The poster above said it has not been declared a VOC, but since vaccines work on the above mentioned 'strains', albeit with less efficacy, then I stand by my point that expert opinion indicates there is no need to panic about the latest 'double mutant' variant from India.

Why does no one seem to care about Brazil yet India is causing such interest?

@JennyBond

Why does no one seem to care about Brazil yet India is causing such interest?

Curious isn't it. The same as lots of people don't normally give a hoot until potentially something could affect us.

For goodness sake, India is a country of nigh on 1.4 b people of which very very few have covid - a far lower percentage of the population indeed than many other countries including some European ones.
News has to sell. But it wouldn't have sold to have told the story every year of nigh on a million people in India dying of TB and diarrhoeal illnesses. Covid is far less of a killer than either of those.
And indeed the air pollution in some cities in India - as in many places with deemed 'high' numbers of Covid cases - has been a killer of millions for years and intersects with all seasonal respiratory illnesses every year.
Obviously in previous years no one particularly gave a damn. It would be nice to think that Covid had at least pulled some in the global North out of their blind ignorance but actually I think all it's done is lead to an incredibly unhelpful sentimental obsessiveness about Covid and total lack of interest and care about anything else.

@JennyBond

Why does no one seem to care about Brazil yet India is causing such interest?

Maybe because Britain has close historic ties with India, and that there are well over a million people of Indian origin living in the UK?

@IcedPurple

This is not true. The expectation is that it will have similar vaccine evasion to the SA and Brazilian strains, and it is now a variant of concern - that's why they're surge testing for it!!

The poster above said it has not been declared a VOC, but since vaccines work on the above mentioned 'strains', albeit with less efficacy, then I stand by my point that expert opinion indicates there is no need to panic about the latest 'double mutant' variant from India.

I guarantee that no expert has EVER said there's a "need to panic" about ANY variant!

The variants are of concern because a small drop in efficacy could make an enormous difference to transmission if not to protection against serious illness.

The current hope is that the UK will achieve herd immunity sometime this summer enabling a complete relaxation of all restrictions. ANY of the vaccine evading mutations could jeopardise that - THAT's why they're of concern!

The current hope is that the UK will achieve herd immunity sometime this summer enabling a complete relaxation of all restrictions. ANY of the vaccine evading mutations could jeopardise that - THAT's why they're of concern!

This one isn't officially 'of concern' though, is it?

And no need to shout with your block capitals and patronising tone. You're no better informed than any of us here.

I work with someone in his 40's from India. He's highly educated and his family are quite well off. When I asked how they were yesterday he said they've been thankfully unaffected so far but many of his friends haven't been so lucky. One friend's wife had been at home on oxygen and when it started running out they couldn't get more. His friend spent the night calling every hospital he could, only to be told they had no space to take her and couldn't help. He ended up having to sit next to her while the oxygen ran out knowing he couldn't do a thing. My heart broke and I'm a complete stranger. I can't even imagine how hard it was for his friend.

It's tragic, @MilduraS. It's the fact that people are dying not from the disease itself, but from a lack of access to resources. That just shouldn't be happening.

Other than the obvious humanitarian concerns, I'm very concerned that Modi will need to blame someone - India already has pitched battles with China on the border, and covid is thought to originate in China, so it's not a big leap to say that China would be where Modi's finger points.

China's dying to fight the US, which is fed up with and frightened of the ascendancy of China, Russia is on the verge of taking Ukraine which has requested Nato membership (obvious reasons) and Russia are pissing Turkey off who are already in Nato, Australia have just said the "drums of war" are banging and the West are sending military equipment to the Pacific (fab), including the UK, who are directly confronting China, who have some sort of nebulous, undisclosed defence pact with Russia... the entire developed world is a stack of nitro soaked dominoes.

Welcome to 1913 mark 2.

The FT are estimating that the death toll might be up to 8 x official estimates - a million people.

www.ft.com/content/683914a3-134f-40b6-989b-21e0ba1dc403

@IcedPurple

The current hope is that the UK will achieve herd immunity sometime this summer enabling a complete relaxation of all restrictions. ANY of the vaccine evading mutations could jeopardise that - THAT's why they're of concern!

This one isn't officially 'of concern' though, is it?

And no need to shout with your block capitals and patronising tone. You're no better informed than any of us here.

So first the straw man, now ad hominem attacks.

I tend to find people resort to logical fallacies when they actually have nothing else to contribute.

Capitals are for emphasis by the way - would have thought an infant could comprehend this, but I guess sometimes I expect people to have far more intelligence and common sense than they actually do...

*So first the straw man, now ad hominem attacks.

I tend to find people resort to logical fallacies when they actually have nothing else to contribute.

Capitals are for emphasis by the way - would have thought an infant could comprehend this, but I guess sometimes I expect people to have far more intelligence and common sense than they actually do...*

So I'm the one indulging in 'ad hominem' arguments eh? Classic.

Anything to back up your claim that the 'double mutant' is officially a 'variant of concern'?

The government there are still refusing to lockdown. Some of the politicians are encouraging rallies. Just a few weeks ago there were mass religious gatherings. It’s baffling.

@runway sadly it seems like a case of "in gods we trust" here we have the luxury of "following the science".

@palacegirl77

Its terrible, however try and get a bit of perspective - pro rata by population they still arent experiencing the same numbers of cases we were in our peak. Unfortunately they are also suffering from a terrible Gov that let it spread. They are the demographic to become more ill and live in very close quarters. Its awful but its not comparable.

Great post, thank you. Per capita, India's daily death toll would have to be around 42 thousand daily to match England 2 thousand daily deaths.

Point of note that covid deaths outside hospital are on the whole not being recorded accurately so the toll may be higher than the recent 3 thousand daily deaths but thankfully nothing close to the 42 thousand.

My calculations are based on India populations of 1.4 billion and uk pop of 63 million so I stand to be corrected but I think my calculations with the UK are ok.

@Runway

The government there are still refusing to lockdown. Some of the politicians are encouraging rallies. Just a few weeks ago there were mass religious gatherings. It’s baffling.

Is it?

Cheltenham.

Good article in the New Yorker echoing what the FT has asserted that there is massive underreporting possibly 8 fold for various reasons.

www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/indias-uncounted-covid-19-deaths

[quote vera99]@runway sadly it seems like a case of "in gods we trust" here we have the luxury of "following the science".[/quote]
Oh we aren't that clever. Remember ski trips? Not too scientific, that. We've had plenty of arrogant fuck ups here, their's just came a bit later.

The science was there just Johnson refused to follow it until it smashed him (and us) in the face. How many thousands are dead because he prevaricated twice. It must be in the 10's of thousands at least. India though is between a rock and a hard place - if you don't pay the poor how can they survive without the luxury of furlough and benefits.

What’s happening in (particularly) Delhi is awful- but i don’t think it’s the uniform picture across all India.

The trouble is as I understand it, that Modi isn’t imposing any central/national restrictions or centralised policies but is explicitly leaving it to regions to set their own rules.

This does raise the question of how effectively the outbreak in (eg) Delhi can be contained to those regions, if there’s a patchwork of restrictions. I find it hard to believe this won’t spread until the entire country is affected, unless something is done.

It’s a mess, and it’s a mess because Modi is basically a Trump style PM.

gh.bmj.com/content/bmjgh/5/11/e003979.full.pdf

India could have a massive problem on their hands as TB funding and resources have been diverted and testing has been drastically reduced.

TB killed 450,000 alone in 2019, so with this left unchecked could cause major issues for oxygen supplies combined with COVID-19 as they both predominantly effect the respiratory system.

2 weeks later and now the Indian variant has seeded itself in the UK and in other countries too.

Just goes to show what a difference a couple of weeks can make.

Fast forward 2 months from now