[ABHI_1512]

Originally Posted by deetee

I don't say you have to run to a hospital as soon as you see 94 on the oximeter, but correlate it with other symptoms and physical situation. It is better to be a little more cautious than to be sorry later.

Perhaps I was not clear in what I wrote. An oximeter comes into play when you have any kind of symptom regarding the virus and more explicitly if someone has any sort of breathing difficulty. I am not saying that oximeter is not necessary or not required but this constant monitoring is not required for a healthy individual which only adds to the anxiety because of fluctuating numbers. Of course if aged people are around then it’s a good instrument to have.

Sorry about your friend’s loss but perhaps in these times, a little more attention would have probably saved him. An oximeter can only help to a certain point but the anxiety is not required when you are not dealing with anything concrete.

It would be naive of me to say that since the oximeter was not required in my case, hence it would be the case with everyone else. We might have got off lightly but not everyone else is that lucky. As I always say, precaution is always better without getting paranoid.

And as far as high profile cases like Kiran Mazumdar Shaw to come out and say now that the virus is not deadly and people should not panic is good optics but wish these ‘do not panic’ dialogues came from the top corridors of power during the early phase of lockdown, many non Covid deaths could have been saved only if the healthcare system was not put to test so early.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by ABHI_1512

...but wish these ‘do not panic’ dialogues came from the top corridors of power during the early phase of lockdown, many non Covid deaths could have been saved only if the healthcare system was not put to test so early.

In several cities, in the early stages of the pandemic, the local authorities were busy sealing private hospitals if they found that a covid positive patient had been there, even if it was for non-covid related issues! And that in turn led to hospitals turning away even more patients for fear of being sealed!

Shutting hospitals in a country where the hospital bed to population ratio is already abysmal, during a pandemic! Let us not forget we did that.

[Sutripta]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

I used to get this stuff from my parents in the 1950s. It's 2020 and nobody in the world should be saying such things.

You have apparently not encountered the monkey cap (do look up what it is) wearing mufflered (tightly enough to shame N95 shields) Bengali men, with their wives expounding on all the disease inducing threats to their children! And the hours such conversations can run into. (I have a feeling we Bengalis learned it from the English!)

What Bengalis are to the rest of India, Italians (and their Colpo D'Aria) are to the Anglo Saxon world.

Sutripta

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by Sutripta

You have apparently not encountered the monkey cap Bengali men

Well, no. But I hear plenty of crazy things at this end of the country, and can, as I mentioned, do so without even leaving home

[AZT]

Tiny village offers window into India's surging COVID-19 caseload

RAJEWADI/GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) - The quaint, sugarcane-growing village of Rajewadi in India’s west did not have a single confirmed coronavirus case until mid-August. Now one in every four people there is positive for the virus

Government officials, police and residents said days before the death - the village’s only fatality from the disease - the person and about 30 others had gathered one night to offer prayers to a local deity. They had dinner together after the rituals, and throughout the function no one wore masks or practiced social distancing.

Sanjay Bhosale, a village grocery shop owner whose son has contracted the virus, said residents had grown tired of the virus rules and started visiting each other like before.
“A perception was created that coronavirus was just a hype, that it’s not that serious,” Bhosale said. “Normal life had resumed for us. Only after the person died, people took it seriously again, but by then the virus had spread across the village. Now we are taking precautions.”
This trend has played out across India’s countryside where 60% of its 1.35 billion people live.

In Satara, total cases doubled between Aug. 6 and Aug. 23, the period in which India added 1 million new infections - the fastest such jump in the world.
Officials warn the situation will get worse before getting better.
“In April and May, people were following all the rules but now the mentality has changed. They have become casual and are taking coronavirus lightly,” Satara’s civil surgeon Subhash Chavan said.

Read More: https://in.reuters.com/article/idINKBN25V0J5

[Thad E Ginathom]

Britain (or maybe just one minister, not sure) has come up with some plan to test whole population on weekly basis! Twenty-minute-result test. Constant testing would mean no need even for social distancing.

Well... it's an idea. A great one in theory. But I suspect that it will go the way of many random witterings of politicians.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Britain (or maybe just one minister, not sure) has come up with some plan to test whole population on weekly basis!

He (or one of his assistants) must have read an article that came out some time ago in one of the magazines (The Atlantic, I think) that described a new paper-based (saliva?) test that would allow people to take tests several times a day. Reading it, I thought it was a bit of a stretch, and I think the paper test method was still pending approval.

If the politicians would just listen to the medical professionals on a medical issue...

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by am1m

I think the paper test method was still pending approval.

The saliva based test was approved couple of weeks back.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

The saliva based test was approved couple of weeks back.

"FDA" so...In America. But others may follow.

OK, so I'm a baby, but last time I had a swab stuck up my nose, it might not have been painful, but it scored high on discomfort! Hoping for some other test if/when I ever need to take one.

[whencut86]

Some positive news on the Russian vaccine

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/77930736.cms

[MasterChief]

Some uplifting news regarding COVID-19 Vaccine development published in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery: Right now there are 321 vaccine candidates. Of these, 32 vaccine candidates are in clinical trials. The most advanced clinical candidates are now in phase III trials - a total of 6.



For more details, see: https://www.nature.com/articles/d415...cc11e-43291033

[Thad E Ginathom]

Did I read that the Putin-hyped Russian vaccine may be coming to India? I don't think I want to have anything to do with that one.

Yes, I'm desperate for immunity too... but also concerned about testing shortcuts.

What to do?

[Gansan]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Did I read that the Putin-hyped Russian vaccine may be coming to Indiai

It is going to be tested. Just like the other four Oxford University/Bharat Biotech/Zydus Cadilla/Moderna vaccines. None have received approval as yet, so no question of us taking them. The only way as of now is to volunteer for user trials.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by Gansan

It is going to be tested. ... ... ...

Not just like the others. There will be no proper phase-three test, because Putin has looked at it and seen that it is good. Maybe we can say that for Mr P, the world is not his oyster, it is his guinea pig

(Except that I don't actually think that's very funny). I think there's huge pressures to cut corners in USA too, for a last-minute-before-election announcement to be possible. Sorry about the politics, but it is making itself part of the story.

[AltoLXI]

Originally Posted by AZT

Tiny village offers window into India's surging COVID-19 caseload

My BIL moved to the village in North Karnataka where his parents stay. Two months back when the cases started rising in Bengaluru and there were no cases in the village, he thought WFH from the village might be good idea. He keeps updating me on the situation there.

Last week ten people died in that tiny village due to the virus. Many had pneumonia like symptoms. The lone doctor who used to run a clinic packed up and left to Belgaum, at around the same time. With no doctors around, people relied on the quacks, who prescribed whatever they thought was the best. My another BIL who stays in the village advised them to go to Belgaum and get themselves checked. The replies he got makes one not only sad but also showcases the sorry state of the administration, beliefs people have and how fake news spreads. Here are the "beliefs" the people in the village have:

1. The doctors in cities are getting paid for the patients they treat and if the patient dies, the doctors get to keep the money. Hence they are injecting and killing patients to make money.

2. The doctors are killing the people in the name of virus and harvesting the organs. They then sell the organs and make money.

3. Some watched the video clips of the bodies being disposed in the fields and think they will also face the same fate if they die. Hence they do not want to go to the doctor.

A few more people have died and they were buried in the village. People from the village also participated in the funeral procession. The reason for the deaths were attributed to heart attacks.

If the situation in a small village is thus, it is apparent that it must be the same across the country. The reported numbers and statistics must be way off from that reported and might not even make sense.