[naveenroy]

Originally Posted by msdivy

WHO has debunked BCG vaccine theory - BCG vaccine for COVID-19 not recommended

Thanks for that info. A friend of mine was very anxious about this point and I didn't want to amplify his false sense of security.

[mvadg]

Here is some interesting research that shows that there are 3 different strains of the SARS-COV2. This research also seems to tell us the reasons why some countries have been affected severely and others not so much.
You can watch the video for a quick summary and read the information for details. Some illustrations from an article from one of the links she provided

https://youtu.be/hsCo8w67FhE

There are THREE distinct strains of the novel coronavirus in the world and while China's epidemic was driven by an early mutation that quickly spread in the UK, the US is suffering from an original variation

• Type A is closest to the one found in bats and pangolins and has two sub-clusters
• One sub-cluster linked to Wuhan and the other is common in US and Australia
• Type B is derived from type A and has become the most prevalent in Wuhan
• Type C is the 'daughter' of type B and was spread to Europe via Singapore

[Chetan_Rao]

Cascading global health impact of the current pandemic.

WHO reports measles vaccination programs have been halted in 24 countries since pandemic began, a further 13 might follow. Total projected impacted number of children who will miss their scheduled vaccinations is a staggering 117 million globally.

Source article.

...around 117 million children set to miss out on their measles vaccine this year due to the international coronavirus lockdown, according to the World Health Organisation.

Measles vaccine programmes have already been halted in 24 countries since the coronavirus pandemic began, the WHO said in a statement on Tuesday.

The halt to vaccine programmes, which the WHO expects to soon be extended to 13 more countries, comes after a recent international resurgence in the disease.

...The global chief of immunization at Unicef, Dr Robin Nandy, told the Telegraph last month that the UN agency has paused its vaccination programmes because of concerns about increasing the spread of the coronavirus.

"We do not want to contribute to the COVID problem through immunization programmes, so we are recommending that all campaigns are temporarily suspended as they bring a lot of people together. We don't want to do any harm" he said.

Two articles from ScienceDaily covering why measles vaccine has broader immunity impact on children.

Article 1: How measles wipes out the body's immune memory

Summary Excerpt:

A new study shows that measles wipes out 20 to 50 percent of antibodies against an array of viruses and bacteria, depleting a child's previous immunity. A measles-ravaged immune system must 'relearn' how to protect the body against infections. The study details the mechanism and scope of this measles-induced 'immune amnesia.' The findings underscore the importance of measles vaccination, suggesting those infected with measles may benefit from booster shots of all previous childhood vaccines.

Article 2: Deadly shadow: Measles may weaken immune system up to 3 years

Summary Excerpt:

Children may actually live in the immunological shadow of measles for up to three years -- leaving them highly susceptible to a host of other deadly diseases -- researchers have found. The study provides epidemiologic evidence that measles may throw the body into a much longer-term state of "immune amnesia," where essential memory cells that protect the body against infectious diseases are partially wiped out.

P.S. Both ScienceDaily articles quote respectable medical sources, and the site itself is rated Pro-Science and HIGH on factual reporting and sourcing by mediabiasfactcheck.com.

The original article source Business Insider is rated Left-Center biased in story selection and HIGH on factual reporting and sourcing.

[karan0009]

Is India underreporting COVID-19 cases? A disturbing news by BBC on the issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIhNKZOHJ74

I guess India needs to speed up the testing process so that casualties can be avoided.

[Safety is Param]

^^ I believe Mysore / Nanjangud theory was debunked last week by authorities.

https://www.newindianexpress.com/sta...e-2128129.html

[The Rationalist]

There have been 3 deaths due to Covid-19 in India which has not been accounted in any states statistics. One Keralite (resident of Palakkad) died in Tamilnadu (Coimbatore) not included in Kerala deaths, Puducherry (resident of Mahe) who died in Kerala not included in Puducherry deaths, person from outside Haryana who died in PGI, Chandigarh. All three had gone to neighbouring states for treatment and died.

I’m ashamed to see Kerala resorting to such acts to keep it’s death tally low, it should be 3 deaths instead of 2. These persons were once productive citizens, the least the states could do is to show some respect! Are we going to put these deaths under ‘OTHER’ column? If Kerala, one of the most transparent of all states has resorted to such methods, I’m really afraid of the rest of the places.

Anyway have alerted the authorities about this discrepancy, let’s see what happens. Will take legal measures if they don’t own up to the mistake (don’t think it’s a mistake, still giving benefit of doubt).

[anujmishra]

Originally Posted by karan0009

Is India underreporting COVID-19 cases? A disturbing news by BBC on the issue...

BBC is most biased media ever on any Indian issues. Take all reports of BBC with pinch of salt. Instead, BBC should focus on their parent country as 1000s of people dying everyday there. They should come out with the shortcoming of that English government. Which they will never do.

India is managing COVID-19 crisis quite well despite being second most populous country. Growth rate of pandemic is still is quite slow because of various steps taken.

My humble suggestion, do not watch any foreign media reports. It is very easy to make any absurd report with the help of camera and microphone these days as everyone is expert on everything.

Trust your governments bulletin from state and center and do your bit of staying home.

[sunilch]

Originally Posted by karan0009

Is India underreporting COVID-19 cases? A disturbing news by BBC on the issue.

I guess India needs to speed up the testing process so that casualties can be avoided.

Oh my dear BBC. Always focused on defaming or finding what is wrong with India

BBC needs to focus on UK for now for sure. BJ is another DT and there are reports of unaccounted deaths due to Covid-19 in elder care homes across the UK. They say at-least 10-15% of deaths are underreported in UK from these shelter homes for the elderly. How about a documentary on that?

[Behemoth]

Continuing my earlier analysis and simulation of the Coronavirus cases, below is the updated data till yesterday. It seems most countries are either under-testing or under-reporting the number of cases due to lack of testing or healthcare infrastructure.
If we assume that the death rate should continue to be the same as 4.65% which was the initial average for the first two months (which has now gone up to 6.3% overall), the expected number of cases is much higher that the number of reported cases.
This situation is still very critical as these are spread rates inspite of the lockdown.



One question to the doctors and epidemiologists (if any on the forum).
If you see the current closed cases data (from worldometer) it is as below:


Out of all the current infected cases, so far only 610,242 have been closed and out of that 79% have recovered and been discharged while around 21% have died - does this mean that the mortality rate is much higher than expected? As the current infected cases also progress, it may happen that many more can become seriously ill and eventually may not recover.
Will lockdowns be able to slow the virus down enough till the time we find a cure ? The situation faced by humanity is quite grave at the moment.

Also the virus seems capable of spreading to even remote and isolated areas - take the case in example of the USNS Comfort Naval Hospital ship - where there are 1200 crew and all were tested before boarding and none were positive - now even on that ship there are 20 Covid positive cases. This is quite worrisome and in spite of the best precautions in Hospitals, the doctors themselves are getting infected. We still don't have enough data on how the virus is spreading, but it does seem to be spreading very fast everywhere.

The next 3 months will be critical for the world as well as India and I pray for the wellbeing and safety of everyone. Take care

(request to Mods , in case my post is too gloomy, please do delete.)

[TROOPER]

This should put a nail on the coffin of all conspiracy theories accusing the Chinese of developing the virus.

Corona virus found in Indian bats

https://www.news18.com/news/india/in...y-2577583.html

[JithinR]

Originally Posted by TROOPER

This should put a nail on the coffin of all conspiracy theories accusing the Chinese of developing the virus.

Corona virus found in Indian bats

https://www.news18.com/news/india/in...y-2577583.html

You do realize that all the conspiracy theories link just the SARS-COV-2 to the Chinese (because this strain is responsible for the pandemic we have now) not every single Coronavirus in the world. There are Coronavirus strains that don't even infect humans.

The knowledge that bats play host to these viruses has been known for quite a long time.

[The Rationalist]

Originally Posted by Behemoth

One question to the doctors and epidemiologists (if any on the forum).
If you see the current closed cases data (from worldometer) it is as below:
Attachment 1993956
Out of all the current infected cases, so far only 610,242 have been closed and out of that 79% have recovered and been discharged while around 21% have died - does this mean that the mortality rate is much higher than expected? As the current infected cases also progress, it may happen that many more can become seriously ill and eventually may not recover.

Dear Behemoth, your work is good one. But the assumption of mortality rate is wrong. The number of deaths 126,741 is out of 2,000,000 cases ( which include active cases, recovered cases and expired ones), we can only come to the mortality rate after the end of pandemic. As you said among the active cases more deaths will happen. As of now we can say the mortality rate is definitely above 6%.

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by sunilch

Oh my dear BBC. Always focused on defaming or finding what is wrong with India

BBC needs to focus on UK for now for sure. BJ is another DT and there are reports of unaccounted deaths due to Covid-19 in elder care homes across the UK. They say at-least 10-15% of deaths are underreported in UK from these shelter homes for the elderly. How about a documentary on that?

It's BBC India, with Indian reporters reporting on India. In India. I dont see any Indian "journalists" doing anything other than sensationalizing everything, rather than reporting facts. So I am glad BBC India is doing so.
How will coverage from UK help the Indian person's understanding?
Did discovering Imran Khan's wife being afflicted, along with his driver, all of it fake albeit, make us stay at home?

[sachinayak]

Originally Posted by anujmishra

India is managing COVID-19 crisis quite well despite being second most populous country. Growth rate of pandemic is still is quite slow because of various steps taken.

India certainly is managing the crisis to the best of its abilities. However this is only half the truth. There is no point denying the fact that our testing levels are quite low (compared to most other countries). If you do not test extensively then how do you know how widespread the outbreak is? Some states with large-sized population like WB, UP, Bihar have testing depth less than 100 tests per million. WB in particular could be a case where things could just explode. While the virus is quite contagious, the only redeeming factor is that the overall fatality rate of COVID-19 is rather low (~3%). In a country where we lose a life under 4 minutes to road accidents and 80+ deaths per day due to drowning, 3% deaths of infected cases will just get lost in the crowd.

As pointed out in some other thread, not all COVID-19 related deaths will be a new subset of people dying coz in many cases there is co-morbidity, but there is no denying the fact that the number of cases in India are quite under reported (not intentionally, mind you) purely due to the shortage of test kits.

If we feel the number of cases in China are not accurate and nowhere close to actual numbers, it would be the same for the rest of the world when they look at India. Just that in one case, it is could be intentional and other non-intentional.

[skdking]

Originally Posted by mayankk

It's BBC India, with Indian reporters reporting on India. In India. I dont see any Indian "journalists" doing anything other than sensationalizing everything, rather than reporting facts. So I am glad BBC India is doing so.
How will coverage from UK help the Indian person's understanding?
Did discovering Imran Khan's wife being afflicted, along with his driver, all of it fake albeit, make us stay at home?

Dear Mayank, Good point raised by you.

However one correction. Just because BBC is hiring Indians for reporting on India does not make it kosher. We all know the type of reporters engaged by any organisation is as per that organisation's line of thought and policy.

The condescending tone and the racist vibes do not necessarily have to come from a white BBC reporter. A well chosen brown person will the job better.

And one request to all. Please do not raise the bogey of shoddy reporting by Indian news channels. All our news channels have been re-designated as Entertainment channels.