[vivek95]

Originally Posted by The Rationalist

I think people who are so afraid should build underground bunkers and live out the rest of their lives there! All the worldly maladies can be kept at bay.
.

Spot on Sir ! And let them further understand the reality that even in underground bunkers they cannot escape viruses and bacteria.

Sweden is claiming that hospital numbers have started falling and they are past the peak of infections , however this is too early to conclude and let us carefully watch for two more weeks and understand if they would indeed attain the victory ( with the virus still in place ). Fingers crossed.

[aamirbhat]

Whatever people say, I think India has controlled this pandemic very well until now. Things could have been worse than what it looks now.

We should support the decision made by Government in power.

Things will ease soon Insha Allah.

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[splitsecond]

Originally Posted by The Rationalist

Kerala as of now has 5000 ICU beds. If virus spreads all over Kerala we will have 5,000,000 infected people, 1,000,000 infected people requiring hospitalisation and 1,00,000 requiring ICU care spread over 6 months in worst case scenario. That will amount to 5000 ICU beds daily, if each person stays 10 days in ICU. That’s the absolute worst case scenario. I think people who are so afraid should build underground bunkers and live out the rest of their lives there! All the worldly maladies can be kept at bay.

.

Please read my original post, i was replying to another Fm's post about mortality rate, not about merits and demerits of lock down, thats another debate.
And about 5000 icu beds wont be sufficient without ventilator support, for example whole calicut district has below 100 ventilators and most of them are already occupied i heard.

[The Rationalist]

Originally Posted by splitsecond

And about 5000 icu beds wont be sufficient without ventilator support, for example whole calicut district has below 100 ventilators and most of them are already occupied i heard.

All patients in an ICU are never on Ventilators! Kerala has 2500 ventilators currently. There is hardly a time when all ventilators will be in use in a hospital. I worked in one the biggest ICU’s in Calicut, it had 32 beds. I have never seen it full during my time, if strict criteria is followed 50% would remain vacant. In most private hospitals, ward doctors will never take slightest of chance and will transfer patients to ICU. Many a times the Intensivist will become frustrated, but as it’s a private set up, they will have to accommodate.

Let me tell you at least 25-30% of ICU admissions are without proper need, they can be managed in wards or high dependency units. Private hospitals are not there to do charity, I hope you understand, I can’t disclose more details on a forum like this and get ostracized by fellow professionals. It all boils down to the individual doctor, a doctor who is following rigid criteria won’t have a job for long in India! It’s a known factor all over the world that when a hospitals ICU beds increase the number of ICU admissions increase as compared to a hospital with less ICU beds, means your admitting criteria becomes relaxed.

[balenoed_]

The word lock down is no more meaningful in Bangalore at least. Plenty of shops open, and the traffic is increasing day by day. Reminds me of the old Bangalore (I mean, pre-covid times).

No idea why authorities are letting it loose if the lock down is supposed to be in effect till May'17.

[BoneCollector]

Originally Posted by DCEite

In a bit of a breaking news, Indian railways has started gradual resumption of passenger trains from May 12 on some select routes. Tickets can only be booked on IRCTC.

Signs that things are opening up in a good way now.

Details here .

[ninjatalli]

Originally Posted by BoneCollector

Details here

Interesting turn of events - while a few state CMs have hinted or outright spoken about extending the lockdown by another 2 weeks, the central government seems to be taking the approach of relaxing the lockdown. This definitely shows the intent; along with the recent statements of the Health minister. I expect these trains to have social distancing rules built in; with only limited seats available in each coach and spread out.

Touts are going to have a field day tomorrow I guess; a lot of these initial trains are heading via/towards the central and eastern belts so there will be a rush for tickets on IRCTC tomorrow for sure.

The PM is having another of his video conference with CMs tomorrow to discuss the go-to strategy; I expect the post-May17th situation to be clearer over the next 24 hours or so.

[ABHI_1512]

Select Trains being started from May 12 as per the circular above. The funny part is that the tickets will be issued through IRCTC online only. The people most desperate for train travel now won’t have accounts for booking through the net and so the middlemen will have a gala time fleecing the already plundered mass ! But then I guess, this is the only way to start. I only hope that adequate measures will be made to not let this train ticket thing become another piece of lottery.

[TKMCE]

The restarting of train services is welcome. Time for the country to move on. We cannot continue to be locked down day after day.

Hopefully similar practical measures will be taken in other areas also from now. Big news all over about sea evacuation. One of the ships is indeed a big one . INS Jalashwa can carry 1000 troops and with social distancing carried 700 citizens to Kochi from Maldives. Today another ship is on the way. This ship is bringing home 202 citizens. Now I do hope there is some logic in making 202 passengers travel 40+ hours by sea when the Air India Express Boeing 737 which are mostly being used for bringing back passengers by flight has a capacity of 180 pax and the flight duration from Maldives to Kochi is 75 minutes!


INS Magar, the second ship which is enroute to Kochi now has a crew compliment of 136 as per Wikipedia, Air India Express Boeing 737 are operated with a complement of 6 including 2 Cockpit crew.


Maybe I am missing the logic of using these small ships when 90% of the passenger aircraft in the country are remaining idle and there will be no shortage of volunteer crew to operate the aircraft.

[Latheesh]

What is the logic behind starting normal train services to/from places which are already red zones? e.g. cities like Mumbai, Chennai, and Delhi? Isn't it dangerous?

[The Rationalist]

Originally Posted by Latheesh

What is the logic behind starting normal train services to/from places which are already red zones? e.g. cities like Mumbai, Chennai, and Delhi? Isn't it dangerous?

For a Red zone to become Orange zone, the current criteria is no new cases for 21 days, if that's followed there will not be any public transport for next 3 months for sure. The metros are the engines that run India, if they are shut then for all practical purposes India is shut. 65% of Air traffic in India is between the biggest cities. Most airlines aren't interested in starting services if the red zones are kept out of air transport. They will be making heavy losses by servicing other areas with less profit.

And about opening up being dangerous, of course it is. If the government guarantee that in another 15 days they will flatten the curve, I'm all for extending the lockdown. Fat chance, I think the ultimate blame will fall on us and we will look like jokers. We went for an exam for which we were never prepared on the first hand and still expect to come out in flying colours. Most of us would have had faced such situations and would know how did it end, unless you had that incredible luck that only whatever a little you knew was there on the question paper.

Originally Posted by TKMCE

Maybe I am missing the logic of using these small ships when 90% of the passenger aircraft in the country are remaining idle and there will be no shortage of volunteer crew to operate the aircraft.

During Gulf war of 1990, India evacuated close to 2 lakh Indians from Kuwait free of cost. It still remains the largest civilian air evacuation by any nation! Movie Airlift was based on that.

[Ithaca]

Received on Whatsapp

https://twitter.com/mark_mackillop/s...12850793553922

Originally Posted by BenjiRoss

One of the things lockdown and restrictions should have achieved is to get people accustomed to a lifestyle of safe physical distancing, avoiding crowding, being organised in shopping and minimising physical interactions.

If one visited the far east in the early 2010s - Japan, South Korea & Hong Kong - one would be surprised to see so many common citizen roaming with face mask on them in public transportation and on the roads. I was recently discussing this with a friend who lived in these countries and he informed me that citizen of these countries would be more offended to know that you contacted any disease from them rather than contacting one from you. Hence they wear face mask at all times as a sign of respect for their fellow citizen.
I think we are going to find a lot of people using face mask as common practice for a long time after this crisis is over. And I will not be surprised if they start using gloves too - in case they need to touch common surfaces during their daily routines.

Originally Posted by DCEite

In a bit of a breaking news, Indian railways has started gradual resumption of passenger trains from May 12 on some select routes. Tickets can only be booked on IRCTC. Signs that things are opening up in a good way now.

Originally Posted by BoneCollector

Details here

We have a event in our family this month. In order to travel to Hyderabad, my cousin sister needed to fill forms online in Karnataka to get a pass for each member of the family. Now if trains are going to be allowed to run, will there be a need to obtain an online pass from the state to travel out of state.
In the current scenario, before trains were allowed, one needed to obtain a pass from home state, then basis that one could apply for a return pass from the destination state to return home.

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by mohansrides

One question though. What do you do for domestic help? Have they started coming back to your society?

Yes. We have started to allow entry of maids and other support staff into our apartment from last Monday.

There were divided opinions on this too and on the other hand, there were genuine cases of only elderly staying at home who desperately needed maids to return too. Needless to say that now most of the ladies are contemplating on dishwashers and robots for dusting and mopping their homes.

However, before taking any call, our RWA waited for the final outcome of the meeting that was held by a larger body representing Bangalore's apartments (Bangalore Apartment Federation, BAF) who had a meeting with Health officials and city civic administration and Police commissioner on last Sunday. Soon after this meeting, the minutes were published that communicated to us that entry of maids and other daily staff shall now be permitted into the apartments.

This permission of course with all the necessary protocols in place - Thermal check, sanitization, strictly no entry for those staff arriving from Red zone within the city (although BBMP officials clearly said they have done their best to restrict their movement).

What if they show a mild temperature when they enter? I am asking because they don't necessarily live in the society and with their frequency of visits multiplied by the number of houses, the logistics could quickly overwhelm you guys.

Good point and like few of our residents who resumed work and are checked for temperature while they enter and are strictly asked to remain indoors till they recover from fever, for maids it was clear that they will be denied entry and will be sent back home.

Additionally, we also made it crystal clear to all the residents that they will need to be completely transparent and fully cooperate with investigations tomorrow and also remain accountable. This was done to ensure that they don't take it too casually and expect maids to resume work so they can relax while this is still a huge risk.

We had no entry for anyone since lockdown - Newspapers, Milk, Grocery and other delivery happened at the gate. We have decided that we will continue to maintain this restriction even after lockdown is lifted. That means it was just residents using the lift. The limited support staff mostly worked 3 hours every day with limited tasks only and never entered any floors.

Now that we allow maids, that very thought where kids may play for few hours in the common area too has taken a back seat because the lift gets used by visiting maids on a daily basis.

There is one resident who has been helpful enough. He owns a Pharma unit that manufactures Probotics. He helped us with large cans of what he calls "anti viral spray" that we use it 4 times a day to spray inside all our lifts. Not sure if this has helped but something better than nothing!

[am1m]

Originally Posted by paragsachania

This permission of course with all the necessary protocols in place -

Wow, that's a whole lot of protocols in place and seems pretty through. Given that a working, tested vaccine is at least a year (most optimistic scenario) away, and then it will take longer to manufacture, distribute and administer to a significant part of the population, does it seem possible to maintain these precautions for so long?

I am certainly not saying anything for or against the listed precautions and my question is certainly not directed just to the member whose post I quoted, or anything in particular in the post. And of course it is definitely better and very sensible to take every precaution during this outbreak.

But this has been on my mind for some time now. All of us can remain extra-vigilant for a few months maybe. Some of us for longer. But given human nature, and what I see around me even now with one week of the lock down yet to go- can we all really remain extra-cautions for more than a year? Personally, I don't think so. The 'new normal' may well be masks and social distancing, but with time, people will get sloppy, relax their guard.

Not criticizing or anything, that's just human nature.

Just yesterday, we went out to get something from a shop. A delivery guy on a bike skidded and fell. A crowd immediately gathered around him to help, as usual. Most were wearing masks, but in that bustling group... Again, not making any comment for or against the incident, just observing that it's human nature. And that's human nature around the world, not just our country. I think eventually we'll just have to live with this virus for a couple of years at least. Sure we can do a few things that will give us peace of mind, but they may just end up as ritual behavior with several large gaps.

(Before anyone jumps all over me, please note: I am NOT saying we should discard all precautions, certainly not.)

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by am1m

Wow, that's a whole lot of protocols in place and seems pretty through.

Few of these additional pointers should help the larger audience too since these come from BAF after their meeting with officials from various departments. This was as on 3rd May and depending on how things will be in future, these protocols can change.

• The BBMP team was able to share the confidence that the overall majority of Bengaluru is safe with infected zones being well-contained. Hence the support for people to slowly resume daily-activities is being encouraged. To that extent, people in non-containment zones, can start exercising the relaxations as provided by the order with a sense of responsibility and continued caution.
  
• On the issue of services by domestic-helps and other support staff, the BBMP team has assured that it is safe to permit resumption of services. This resumption should be accompanied by very strict measures like perimeter temperature checks, sanitization, wearing of masks and gloves, social-distancing in common-areas as applicable etc. While people from containment zones are strictly banned from leaving those zones and authorities are ensuring that, it is in the interest of RWAs to double-check entry origins vis-à-vis containment zones. Also, home-stay rules applicable to people aged above 65 and with other co-morbidities and conditions apply here as well, for their own safety. In case any domestic helps are not yet comfortable resuming duties, there should not be any coercion on that count as well.
  
• Residents who will resume work, based on allowance for public sector organizations to function and private sector organizations to function with 33% staff, should exercise all precautions and adhere to conditions applicable as they go to and return back from work. RWAs should implement perimeter screening and hygiene measures, as applicable to all.
  
• People who are awaiting moving in or moving out can do so, again as long as the source and destination locations are not in containment zones. Also while executing the move-in/move-out, all perimeter screening and hygiene measures are strictly applicable. While move-in/move-out has been deemed to be essential, aspects like interior-work etc. should wait till completion of this lockdown phase.