[hydraulicsteer]

This thread is now full of misinformation on the pandemic. Don’t want to point out to specific posts. Predicting doomsday about how the economy and medical system is collapsing will breed nothing but panic. If mods could see a possibility of closing this thread in the interest of aforementioned concerns.

[BenjiRoss]

Originally Posted by BoneCollector

Apparently this is the official site for tracking Covid19 status in India.

Covid

From their FAQ.

Are you official?
No

[bharatbits]

Originally Posted by DCEite

Something got me thinking:

The COVID-19 is the disease of the Elite. I mean, it primarily spread from foreign inbound air travellers, or you can say, the upper middle or elite class. With time, it is expected (god forbid) to spread to lower income group and finally to the poor.

Imagine if it was the other way around. If the disease had started from the Poor, there would have been absolute mayhem by now. Poor do not have access to proper testing, diagnosis or treatment. Majority of cases would have gone un detected. Our maids, drivers, cleaners would have spread the disease to middle class and finally to the elite class.

In a way, it is a positive that this disease had a top down spread in the society. If it was a disease having bottoms up spread, we would have been devastated as a country, with virtually no chance to fight back.

It is a disease of the elite that is why it spread far and wide across the globe from China in no time. If it were the disease of the poor or low income group who don't globetrot it would have created a mayhem in China with so many casualties reported and would have got the world media covering it giving enough time for nations to strategize on how to combat the disease when it reaches them.

[D33-PAC]

Mod Note: Post deleted! Please do not post conspiracy theories that add no value to the discussion. Any further posts of those lines will be deleted.

[sgiitk]

We are into a lockdown. Things may take a day or two to settle down. In the UK people are still going for long walks! Even though they are in a bigger fix they are still not alert.

[ckranjan]

A Bhpian in Spirit:

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/74802386.cms

[racer_ash]

Originally Posted by DCEite

Something got me thinking:....
Imagine if it was the other way around. If the disease had started from the Poor, there would have been absolute mayhem by now.

The Ebola virus spread of recent years is an example of this. It started amongst the most impoverished regions of Africa and did substantial damage there. However, most of the so called elite western nations including the WHO apparently were mostly turning a blind eye to the devastation. There was mayhem in the affected countries but other areas apparently seemed isolated.

Only after couple of cases in the UK etc. mostly from doctors who travelled to the affected regions to treat patients did the world actually take notice.

[PPS]

Originally Posted by bharatbits

It is a disease of the elite that is why it spread far and wide across the globe from China in no time.

I think limited air connectivity between India & China helped us a lot & we were spared a full onslaught ! Although 1 stop options would be many, but I guess Indian tourists do not fancy China as much as they do Europe.

[Turbanator]

Corona message conveyed by Punjab Police in a nice way

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

[whencut86]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

I dont contest the 21 days, or 21 years or even 210 years which may come into fruition, but why not take calls as the situation evolves? They are single-handedly tanking the economy, brutally at that.

The way to increase GDP per Capita is not to reduce the Capita. Economy will have a big jolt but we will bounce back. Post this, there will be local production of a majority of stuff and we will benefit in the long run. For that we need our population to be intact. Already talks to ventilator parts being imported from China and not receiving imports now. Things like these will be made locally post this. 21 days lockdown is a measure needed because or population density is very high that it will potential cripple our healthcare systems and we will end up with a shortage of beds that even those who can be saved will die eventually without beds.

[AZT]

Prince Charles tests positive. On a lighter note, looking at the age of our politicians, now we know why they are freaking out

[adrian]

Kudos to Kerala Police for enforcing the lock down.

As usual, lots of vehicles were there on the street.

Essential services were allowed to pass through the check point and so were the case of those who had kept the declaration filled up with valid reasons.

Those who didn't carry the declaration with them were questioned and those who answered like "I am going to see a friend of mine" had to leave their vehicles in Police custody and walk back home.

The vehicles will be released only after 21 days, as per the current stand of the enforcement.

Those who are entering silly reason in the declaration are being send back after the vehicle number is noted along with a strong warning that repeating the offense will cause the registration of their vehicle to be cancelled.

The District Administrations, the Police and the RTO have taken decisions regarding the same.

Some of the loitering pedestrians got blessed with the cane lightly

[volkman10]

As the coronavirus pandemic unfolds, people are dying around the world. But the trajectories of cases and deaths differ by country.

Testing rates for the virus differ so much that the number of positive results in a given country is not a precise barometer of how many people are afflicted. But deaths also lag infections substantially; evidence from China suggests that most patients who died from Covid-19 were infected for a month before their death.

Deaths in U.S. States:

Deaths so far have been highest in the states of Washington and New York, the sites of the country’s first major outbreaks. But the numbers are growing in other parts of the country as well

Link

[mvadg]

Interesting post by Kannan Gopinathan

21 days lockdown — A critique
Kannan Gopinathan

Mar 25 · 3 min read

Supporting or abiding by the government decision, does not mean one should stop critical thinking process. Such a thought lockdown would lead to groupthink and thus sub-optimal or even foolish decisions. So, indulge me as I pose some questions as to whether a 21 day lock-down is the best possible course of action for India?

First is that we do not know the parameters used to take such a decision. Like why this decision now? Is it the number of cases, the rate of increase in spread, us moving towards community spread stage… what? But let us leave that for now.

A more crucial question is what happens after 21 days. What are the parameters on which we are going to decide whether to continue the lockdown or withdraw it? I strongly believe government needs to be transparent about this as then only we will know whether the lockdown has served its purpose.

From what I understand, a lock-down helps us to delay the spread, allowing us to use this time to

1. Identify/develop the drug combination and mass produce.

2. Ramp up the health infrastructure during the time

3. Scale up testing infra and then test, isolate and trace every single carrier

Let us take it one by one. A medicine being developed and produced in mass-scale during this period is the best scenario. WHO has already initiated megatrial for four most promising treatments, https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020...rus-treatments. But 21 days would be unrealistic as most drug trials take months.

The next one, that is to use the time to ramp-up the health infrastructure, it would be a serious challenge, especially considering the geographical spread of the disease in India. 25 states/UTs have confirmed cases of Corona as of today. Lack of ICU, ventilators and even PPEs are not overcome during such a short time.
The next one, the trace, test and isolate under a city-wide containment strategy that Wuhan is the trickiest one as far as India is concerned. Unlike China, in India cases have been reported across the country and is not limited to any one city. Hence, a national level mobilization of resources to tackle city wide disaster as in Wuhan’s case (https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/18...for-the-world-) is not possible. Each state and city will be scrambling to fight its own battle.
Another reason why it is not possible is because of our stand that we have not entered community spread stage. This assumption is dangerous as that leads us to a severely restrictive testing strategy/protocol. So, without near universal screening and testing, we can never be sure if the virus remains in the community or not after the 21 days period.

This puts us in a difficult situation because if we don’t isolate every single case during this period, lifting of the lock-down after 21 days would simply put us back to square one. People with virus still present but undetected amongst us! Then how are we going to decide whether to continue being in the lock-down or to lift the restrictions?

Chinese strategy is not without its economic and social costs. But when applied nation-wide, without a plan for near universal screening and testing, to a country like India with negligible safety net and social security, the whole exercise itself could become futile with very negligible gain and massive cost to life and livelihood.

So, while advocating and advising voluntary social distancing, don’t put the nation into a lock-down without a plan to ensure that every single case would be tested, isolated and traced during this period. Else, after 21 days we are going to be as dark as we are today about the scale and spread of the virus. Now with a large section of people under severe economic distress. And we will never know what caused more misery, the virus or the response to it!

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by adrian

Kudos to Kerala Police for enforcing the lock down.
... ... ...

Those who didn't carry the declaration with them were questioned and those who answered like "I am going to see a friend of mine" had to leave their vehicles in Police custody and walk back home.
... ... ...

How is it even possible to so much miss the point?