[Shreyans_Jain]

I believe that the best way forward is to extend the lockdown for another 15 days and hope the heat and humidity of the Indian summer take over from there and become our best friend. As much as we try, there is no other way to truly slow down the virus as we all know how much the actual implementation on the ground is across the vast rural hinterland. Honestly, never before have I looked forward to temperatures reaching 45 degrees.

[GeeTee TSI]

I had a medical requirement (although not an emergency) to transport a family member from Bengaluru to Chennai on 7th April. While I started enquiring about a travel pass, I was also prepared to stay back in Chennai until permitted to return.

We would need to drive down in my car and hence I went first to the nearby police station (by car) to apply for the pass on Sunday the 5th. Upon being redirected to DCP Bangalore North, I went to the DCP's office, Amrutahalli armed with an email from the doctor citing the need.

Since it was a Sunday evening, I was instructed to come on Monday the 6th. Slightly anxious but clear to not risk a travel without requisite documents, I waited till about noon from morning at the DCP's office and got to know he was not there. There were quite many anxious people waiting with various reasons - demise of a family member, medical reasons et al. While goods transporters requiring a local city pass were promptly redirected to the mobile app, outstation passes required the DCP's direct permission.

Post lunch, the wait continued with no sign of the DCP. A sympathetic policeman directed me to an official and explained my urgency in Kannada. The official slipped into my hands the DCP's mobile number nudging me to speak to him directly regarding my case. It turned out the DCP was also a medical doctor (!) and politely listened to the details. Upon his instruction, I shared the application and letters via WhatsApp and he promptly replied, telling me to meet the official. I showed the WhatsApp exchange and the official treated this as consent and drafted the travel pass on the letter head.

The letter still required the DCP's signature and he was not yet in office till evening. There were a few permission letters besides mine and one of the constables had an idea. The PA to the DCP would take the letters to his residence if someone could ferry him to and fro. I promptly volunteered and closer to 6pm, we were back at the Police Station with my signed outstation pass.

While I was relieved things fell in place, it was not without the timely support from the Police (from the Constable to the DCP). We were able to drive down from Bengaluru on 7th morning and needless to say, there were multiple checks, however with empty toll booths and near-zero traffic. I'm happy to inform we had a smooth journey and reached our Chennai destination without incident.

I felt I should behave responsibly and drove at a steady but slower than usual pace. There was no need to rush, as bottlenecks zones were unidentifiable and empty, tolls not collected nor deducted by Fastag (even the boombar was retracted). Petrol pumps however were functional throughout the distance.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by carboy

Comment from my friend: Long lockdowns are a great way for people with enough money & resources to get by for a long time to reduce chances of their infection.

I agree with your friend, and have declared the self interest before: being retired, my financial situation is the same if I do not go out. In fact, better: less spending! Like many retirees, I do rely on interest, but more so on pension payments. I do rely on the financial systems of India and UK to at least go on existing --- and being able to buy food in the city.

[msdivy]

Whether to extend the lockdown or end the lockdown boils down to a single question - What is the endgame for covid-19?
Answer to this question will help to decide on lockdown.

Answer 1: Isolate, enforce social distancing with police, army with the lockdown. Ensure all suspects are quarantined and release them to the general public pool after they test negative. Completely shut down all non-essential activities and single-mindedly focus on ensuring all residents test negative. After that, ensure all arrivals to the country are quarantined for 14 days and let them enter only after test negative. Any case detected will be quarantined strictly along with all who have come in contact with that person. This will ensure least number of deaths.
End of lockdown: Until all cases in the country or region are quarantined.

Answer 2: End lockdown, either fully or partially now. Ensure social distancing by police (or army). Open up businesses, again with strict social distancing. With this path, the general population will contract the virus. Many of them will come out of infection without being sick. Some require basic care. Some will require hospitalization. Some will require ICU care. Whoever falls wick will get treatment, get well and go on with their business. Not possible to estimate the number of deaths.
End of lockdown: After April 14th, 2020

Take your pick.

PS: Found this thread on SwineFlu, for a laid-back read, when T-BHP discussed H1N1 in 2009 - https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shift...-page-7-a.html (Swine Flu Information - Important Information in post#102 on Page 7) (1st case reported in 12th post)

[itwasntme]

Originally Posted by vb-san

Are the state authorities doing this? In Kerala, the Chief Minister's update at 6pm everyday provide with these statistics. And I agree, the regular updates help to keep the anxiety levels down and give some kind of assurance to the public.

Karnataka has been amazingly transparent and proactive in sharing information starting from the GoK websites, Twitter (CM's office, Health / Medical Education minister/ministries, Bangalore Police), Corona Watch app, and throughout the day on local TV channels.

My main source is this COVID-19 'portal' which is updated 24x7:

https://karunadu.karnataka.gov.in/hf.../covid-19.aspx

The nightly bulletins are excellent. Attached a sample bulletin which is usually a continuation of the earlier days and thus you can keep track very easily.

[Lobogris]

Originally Posted by TRR

A vast majority of the people in this forum own private cars and bikes in which they can travel, maintain social distancing and follow "restrictions and precautions". What about those who can only rely on public transport, who incidentally belong to that class of persons who you implore others to think of. Will you tell the daily wage labourer to wait several hours at the bus stand so that he can find an empty bus to follow "restrictions and precautions", especially when you know that the bosses in this sector are willing to cut wages for a wasted minute? Will you tell the maidservant to walk to her place of work 15-20 kms away everyday for the next couple of months so that she can follow "restrictions and precautions"? Will you tell the mechanic at the factory on the outskirts of the city that he has to wait for several hours so that his employer can arrange a bus as they have to spread out the entire workforce on few buses just so that he can follow "restrictions and precautions"? Will you tell the receptionist to pay through her nose for a cab so that she can avoid taking the crowded metro services to follow "restrictions and precautions"? Even if you do, are you willing to sanitize all these places just so that people can go to work? This is just one of the incredible challenges that people across our country will face if asked to adhere to "restrictions and precautions".

At least we can give them a choice. They can decide whether they want to take the risk and whether the hardship of reaching the workplace is justified. Right now we are forcibly taking away their livelihood. Similarly, people also have a choice. Those who believe it is safer to stay indoors can do so. Why destroy the entire economy, take away everyone's livelihood and infringe on all personal freedoms? In any case, almost half the people are under the exempt category? Is their safety not important? Why are we then putting a bank cashier, a security guard, a policeman, a worker at a wheat mill etc. at risk? Their lives don't matter? If we are willing to accept that some risk in necessary then why not use all these lockdown enforcement zeal and manpower on enforcing social distancing? Why not allow businesses to open with precautions? After all that is what we are going to end up doing anyway but after needlessly imposing a grave economic cost. When we consider that a lot of people are too poor to have the luxury of social distancing whether they work or not and that there is a large group of ever growing exempt category then we can come to the conclusion that remaining open with social distancing is the better option. We could have planned this better from the start by closing high risk areas and activities while allowing things like construction which is a major employer to continue.

[carboy]

Originally Posted by TRR

Will you tell the daily wage labourer to wait several hours at the bus stand so that he can find an empty bus to follow "restrictions and precautions", especially when you know that the bosses in this sector are willing to cut wages for a wasted minute?

And you expect this boss to pay him salary while he doesn't come to work at all because of an extended lockdown?

[JithinR]

An update regarding the availability OF PPE, Ventilators and Masks in India (relevant info is around the 4:00 minute mark).

https://youtu.be/-A34AQBNYr4

P.S. There is some weird issue with the audio (it seems to be biased to one side) at least for me.

[poloman]

737 new cases in India as per worldometer. This is the highest so far I think. All this even when a strict lock down is in place. You can see India slowly inching up the list and has jumped 40 countries since last week. Still we are arguing about the severity of the spread. If you end the lock down now, India will be next hot spot for sure which can lead to unimaginable tragic consequences.

Hope the Govt take the right decision and won't get carried away by the propaganda few rich people are playing firing from the shoulders of the poor as usual. Human life is greater than economy or profit. Period..

Good that political class from left to right is united on this and recommending the lock down till Apr 30 atleast.

I am getting really worried about Maharashtra. Something is going wrong here. The state accounts for 1/4 of the total cases and more than half of the total deaths.
Exponential rise in numbers, very high mortality rate compared to rest of country..!! Is Mumbai going the New York way?

[ritz3645]

India is in full lockdown, but Two Land Rover Range Rover & two Toyota Fortuner are in the news today. Wadhavan Family of ILFS travelled in them to Mahabaleshwar, where they got caught.


ANI on Twitter:

Maharashtra: Members of Wadhavan Family of DHFL group have been placed under institutional quarantine by local police in Mahabaleshwar after they visited the town, violating the lockdown. The process to file a complaint has been initiated at the local police station.

https://mobile.twitter.com/ANI/statu...69847122739200

Source for pic & car details :
https://mobile.twitter.com/DarshilKM...96415966580736

[poloman]

Poor Wadhavan family, they had gone there to help the employees of their farm house, of course..Such good souls they are.. Twist expected...
I did not see this news when I voiced my concerns about Maharashtra in the above post. I got my answer instantly it seems.

[The Rationalist]

Extending the lock down for another 15 days won’t be enough as there are lakhs of Indians waiting to come back from abroad. In ideal scenario we have to wait till the disease dies out, that means all the international flights would have to be stopped for few more months. And all the districts would have to be locked down till the index cases and their contacts have been quarantined, whether that’s possible is a big question as there are cases without history of exposure to patients.

The lock down will help in preventing people get infected, once the lockdown is lifted the threat of the virus is very much there as the majority will not be immune still. If you ask me, right now I’m not sure what is the ideal thing to do. You can’t lock down a big country like ours for 3-4 months, can we?

[sathish81]

Have a question for doctors and medical experts- Can group testing identify covid 19?

Instead of testing individual, collect blood from group of individuals (I am thinking 16) and perform the test. If no covid signs are seen then that group can be certified free of covid 19.

This method will drastically reduce number of tests and provide quick decision points to move forward.

I am sorry, if the idea sounds stupid to medicos but if it does ,would be interested in knowing the science
/reason behind why it's not possible

[nikhn]

Originally Posted by poloman

All this even when a strict lock down is in place. You can see India slowly inching up the list and has jumped 40 countries since last week. Still we are arguing about the severity of the spread. If you end the lock down now, India will be next hot spot for sure which can lead to unimaginable tragic consequences.

Hope the Govt take the right decision and won't get carried away by the propaganda few rich people are playing firing from the shoulders of the poor as usual. Human life is greater than economy or profit. Period..

No no. You don't understand. It's not that simple. There is some "philosophy" and science involved in this.

Anyways people are dying with the lockdown and economy is tanking, why not remove the lockdown and let the economy boom instead? At least some people are immune. Fortunately, once they are tested and found negative, they suddenly become immune and can roam around freely without catching the virus again or spreading it. It's like the virus knows that these people are tested and it should not infect them. When the infection and death rate increases even further (which mostly won't since people will get their jobs back and start working like before), one can start blaming the government and whoever was requesting for a longer (not permanent) lockdown as to why no action was taken. Someone has to take the fire for the frustration.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Railways has distributed over 8.5 Lakh cooked meals for whoever needs it from March 28th. More information here.

[WorkingGuru]

Originally Posted by sathish81

Have a question for doctors and medical experts- Can group testing identify covid 19?...

Ofcourse we can do group tests, we need to immediately explore options for that :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dekGYSeZJ9M

What is the endgame to tackle corona virus ? Suspending economic activity beyond 35 days will terribly hurt the economy.

STEP 1 : Well, to start off, conduct group testing for hotspots, extract the COVID19 +ve patients and cordon off the rest who have tested -ve. This needs to be done simultaneously so as to fulfill all conditions required to ensure the virus is cleaned out from the environment to sanitize these thickly populated hotspots and allow the essential economic activities to function.

Those who've tested COVID +ve should be treated and from the healthy ones among them, consider collecting the plasma for transfusion. AFAIK the anti-bodies will only be actively present in them for a limited period of time. I don't know if doctors in private labs & clinics can help with plasma transfusion.

ALOT of co-ordination will be required for this. As and when COVID19 +ve cases are detected, more medical staff will be required with PPE - Govt has a plan with that.

STEP 2 : Repeat this process with vigorous detail for all the urban areas. It may seem like a tall order, but aim to complete this within the next 3 weeks with the help of armed forces. Thus, the urban cities can then be sanitised and economic activity can resume. Mark COVID19 -ve citizens through Aadhaar identification. Make this data available online. This check must be compulsorily used before any business employs people directly.

STEP 3 : Rural India grows food for those in urban cities, and all supplies that enter the city cannot be checked. Awareness must be raised to ensure all food supplies are washed as soon as they're purchased by the end-consumer. As this happens in the middle of summer, please try not to waste water if not necessary. Alot of behavioral changes will be required at this time - so we may need to practice self restraint & work on our patience considering that we are quite practically in a state of war with an invisible enemy that is only out to take advantage of our negligence.

P.S. :
Alot of imbalanced reporting comes from the media - the kind that prioritises a celebrities antics (& PR campaign) over the sacrifices of the regular citizens around us. Let us not be consumed by ignorance and indifference in this time of distress.

This BBC reporter ended her report in a well balanced manner.

https://youtu.be/L6wIcpdJyCI?t=33