[rdst_1]

Originally Posted by bj96

Unlikely due to migrants arriving a day or two back. It takes over a week to test positive. Most probably some older asymptomatic infections showing up now.

-BJ

Nope. It is the migrants themselves who are testing positive after displaying symptoms for 2-3 days.

[Carpainter]

Originally Posted by carnutfrombanga

As of now there is no clear information about how to go about getting permission or pass which is valid in TN and Karnataka.

Am I hoping for too much at this point?

I have a relative whose father died on 1st May in Kolkata. He was stranded in Delhi for work and then lockdown. So he hired a car which charged him 50k which is I think fair at this time considering a distance of more than 3000 kms to and fro. He got District Magistrate's permission letter and reached home in about 18 hours without much trouble.

Can't confirm for TN or Karnataka but I guess if you have a valid reason and DM's approval, you can still travel anywhere you want.

[Rohitj92]

Quick update from Mumbai

[mohansrides]

I think we are now seeing some divergence in thinking in the political community. On the one hand we have the Telangana CM who just announced a longer lockdown; and on the other, we have the Delhi administration which is quite coherently talking about how the lockdown is seriously damaging life and society. Watch till the end where he clearly hints at the going past the silver linings of the new normal to get back to living as we were.

Then there is this article. We of course knew this from before. But now there are more and more voices talking about how a Covid vaccine may never come. This one’s from the WHO.

[splitsecond]

Originally Posted by Turbanator

By now decision makers will have enough reasons to believe the current% of people getting effected vs mortality is very low and manageable. Remember, there can be many more unaccounted infections, but they account Death counts well.

So, they have taken a calculated risk of opening things gradually. We will see the spikes, even doubling rate will increase, but as long as fatalities do not rise exponentially, I don't see the restrictions coming back.

This is not true, covid death rate will increase once the hospitals are overloaded, and it wont be manageble, covid has the potential to infect large percentage of the population(unlike flue) without some kind of effective restriction. This low mortality rate claim is repeated in this forum, which is not true.

[TheCatalyst]

I get more ground-level info from this thread, than from any news channel. It's become a routine of sorts to go over this at midnight when I get my subscription email. Having said that, I did support the lockdown 1.0, had mixed thoughts for lockdown 2.0, and now against 3.0.

Having said that, I must admit, our government has exceeded my expectations as I never contemplated a lockdown in a country like India. I mean, here we take 5-10 years to build a simple flyover or a bridge and to think that we could handle such a pandemic was beyond believable. I was never convinced from the beginning and I did mention it here in March. To be honest, I do feel sorry for the government where they are torn between listening to epidemiologists and economists. And it has almost come to a point where I feel we are flying blind farther and farther away with a low fuel warning.

Lockdown 1.0 took me by surprise. I live in Mumbai and had come to visit my parents in Vasai (a far away suburb) which is where I am stuck since. On one hand, I am happy that I am stuck with my parents , however I did lose an entire collection of exotic aquarium fishes at my other home due to starvation (have a live video feed). In a hurry I had forgotten to give the keys to my neighbour. As I said, I did support the 1.0 maybe due to the fear the various whatsapp forwards had created in everyone's mind. I really wished government had implemented it in staggered approaches so that people could also better prepare themselves for the long hibernation (even if just 21 days). In hindsight, we are letting the migrants leave anyway.

By 2.0 it was apparent that government had no Plan B and were gradually waking up to the fact that the lockdown wasn't working. Earlier I had given them the benefit of doubt, since all the world data pointed in that direction. But now, with people losing jobs or being furloughed and deep paranioa setting in, it was apparent that a lot of sectors were going to be bankrupt. Reading the infected/death statistics was proving counter-intuitive and it was then I wished that government should have started publishing numbers of increased ICU beds (just isolation wards are not enough) per capita, the distribution of serious cases w.r.t to healthy/immune-compromised and deaths by age groups. This would have instilled a sense of confidence among the young which are needed to re-open the economy. I really would like to know the death rate for just the young.

And this is also the silver lining I see. The deaths among 0-20, 20-60 and 60+ are highly skewed towards senior citizens. But no-one is publishing these figures. I understand in our culture a lot of young stay with their elders, but that also means they can be socially isolated in the same house with simple measures like using different towels, bed linen, cutlery as well as disinfecting door knobs, taps and light switches. If there is a separate room for them, then great. These folks are retired anyway, can stay indoors much longer.

Coming to the kids, social isolation is not much of an option. But however heart wrenching a kid getting infected may sound, their immune systems have proven to better handle this disease than most.

Those supporting this extended lockdown, I would like them to ponder on one thing. When essential services involving millions of Indians are still working, how are we supposed to expect a zero case scenario when these people are the potential vectors? On a similar note, I admit I also feel guilty to sit in the comfort of my home in this lockdown, while they go out and work for us? I am sure they are not doing this by choice. Even giving them additional pay for their service contradicts the debate of putting a price on life?

Also the zoning technique needs to be improved. Now that the virus is here to stay, if a city like Bombay can handle 5000 cases due to its larger healthcare, then why should it be in a red zone? Maybe a smaller tier-3 city lacks hospitals and should be in red zone for just 50 cases.

With the 'Devil and the Deep Sea' situation we are in, it all boils down to controlling the spread now as much as you can handle, till the vaccine comes. What comes to mind is the final episode of 'Chernobyl', where Legosov explains how a nuclear reactor works. The boron rods need to be just right to maintain the chain reaction. Nor do you totally remove them, neither do you push them all the way through. This lockdown needs to be made optional, those who can afford to stay indoors, can continue. But since this curfew doesn't seem to be working as a long term measure (we are a developing country after all), we need to cut our losses.

Thus I voted for 'No' to this lockdown 2.0,3.0...n, though that doesn't mean I don't support partial lockdowns. I do, but not those with political borders, much more granular ones.

[Miyata]

Meanwhile, in another part of the world, Austria says reopening shops has not accelerated coronavirus infections

on April 14 Austria became one of the first countries in Europe to loosen its lockdown, reopening DIY and garden centres as well as shops of up to 400 square metres - twice the playing area of a singles tennis court.

have no indication of a noticeable increase in individual areas. The situation is very, very constant, very, very stable and that is a really very, very positive, good situation,

The daily increase in infections is 0.2%.

...

Personal responsibility and discipline remain the most important thing because a possible second wave (of infections) must not become a tsunami

While trying to find further information on the Austria model of handling the situation, I found an older publication (April 21) with what might appear as relevant information -

Austria Has 90% Drop in Coronavirus Cases After Requiring People to Wear Face Masks

The WHO added, "Masks are effective only when used in combination with frequent hand-cleaning with alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water."

One can only hope that we maintain such discipline of wearing mask at all times when venturing out while continuing to practice social distancing and using the well proven preventive measures of hand-wash and hand-sanitization.

I think we'll be good if we just did that. Hope the mess-ups get minimized and people do not get compelled to protest and/or violate the precautionary measures.

[The Rationalist]

Originally Posted by splitsecond

This low mortality rate claim is repeated in this forum, which is not true.

What’s your source of this statement? India has 1 death for 1 million population, USA 217 for 1 million. And Kerala has 0.09 death for 1 million population. You can’t simply make your own conclusions. The above thing is verified by eminent Epidemiologists in India. Please don’t tell the number of positive cases is 49,000 and number of deaths is 1600 in India as we are testing very less. Number of positive has no significance in Indian context.

Tests per million
USA - 23,000
India -864
Death one can’t fudge much, where as we are missing out on people with infection due to abysmally low testing. If you test more, only positive cases will be increasing, deaths won’t be increasing.

[Turbanator]

Originally Posted by rdst_1

Nope. It is the migrants themselves who are testing positive after displaying symptoms for 2-3 days.

Possible as no one is testing. I was at DC office in SAS Nagar yesterday for some work. They are asking people to get some medical test (Rs100 or so) and upload the requests. This is just an eyewash as a random agency will check temperature, and that's about it. Rs 100 is not a sizeable amount but multiply with over 10 Lac people registered only in Punjab and this becomes large. There will be many other such examples in purchase of equipments/ medicine etc..

HP has taken a calculated risk of letting people from Punjab come with brief checks as overall Punjab is doing Ok. But they should have kept people coming from Delhi and other such places in mandatory quarantine.

[Nav-i-gator]

For those saying not enough testing is done in India..

Positive tests as a % of total testing done is a fair assessment of how bad the infection is spreading, right? specially since India is testing only the suspected people.



India is right up there, only bettered by S.Korea.

[The Rationalist]

Originally Posted by TheCatalyst

.
The deaths among 0-20, 20-60 and 60+ are highly skewed towards senior citizens. But no-one is publishing these figures.

Also the zoning technique needs to be improved. Now that the virus is here to stay, if a city like Bombay can handle 5000 cases due to its larger healthcare, then why should it be in a red zone?

I have the data and graphs for places where they have released age specific death rate. Maharashtra is one state which have done a good job in being transparent in releasing data. I’m not posting the data and graph here as there are many who don’t know how to interpret that.

The death rate is high among 50-70, then one will jump and say see the death rate in 50-70 is very high in India and in the Western countries it is more in > 70 age group. First thing we should recognise the life expectancy in India is around 69, while in West it is 75+!

The illness can’t kill people of certain age group if there are very few of that age alive ( if you check above 90 mortality it will be very less, you don’t come to a conclusion that being > 90 is protective!) The more you live the higher are your chances to die, isn’t it?

About zoning technique, you are absolutely correct. But do you think anybody applies common sense?

[mohansrides]

Originally Posted by Nav-i-gator

For those saying not enough testing is done in India..

India is right up there, only bettered by S.Korea.

Thanks for sharing this. I had not seen the countrywise comparison before; but I did my own math based on the information presented in the papers and came up with the 4% number for positives in India.

But yes, I will fully agree with you that India is a doing a great job in broadening the test net. The only thing is that relative to our size and living circumstances, even this test coverage is quite inadequate.

But, setting that aside, the real issue for me is that I believe that all this testing is simply for nought.

The thing is that unless, by some magical means, we happen to test every one of our 1.3 billion people at the exact same moment in time and then immediately isolate the positives, we will get nowhere.

Think about it. Even within our fairly tight test coverage guidelines, we are only testing in serial fashion. So, a person could give their test sample (which would eventually turn out negative let's say) and then get infected on their way home. So, that person would actually be positive although their test results that will come 5 days later will say that they are negative. This situation could play out in N ways. Someone gives the test which turns out negative, then they are allowed to go home. Then a few days later, that same person gets infected by touching some door knob somewhere.

These are not hypothetical scenarios. In fact, I am 100% sure that these scenarios are in play right now as we speak.

So, I think that we are currently caught in a futile cycle of testing round-robins which will never end. Because the same people who you dismiss as being negative could go out and get infected, which would mean that you have to test that same person again.

I think the only way out is to stop all the testing and just treat the symptomatic patients. Otherwise, we are flushing valuable resources down the drain for no reason.

[JithinR]

Now there are states who don't want migrants to leave to their home states and seem to be placing hurdles in their way.

I can sympathize with these guys. With the amount of uncertainty on when the restrictions will be lifted even I would want to be with my family.

It's amazing how many things can be accomplished with a simple meeting with the CM/PM in our country (as long as you are a wealthy businessman).

Following the meeting with builders, the Karnataka CM released a statement, reading: “The COVID 19 situation in the State is in control when compared to other States. Barring the red zones, business, construction work and industrial activities have to be resumed. In this background, it was explained that unnecessary travel of the migrant workers has to be controlled.”

https://www.thequint.com/amp/story/n...s-for-migrants

[Nalin1]

Originally Posted by mohansrides

The thing is that unless, by some magical means, we happen to test every one of our 1.3 billion people at the exact same moment in time and then immediately isolate the positives, we will get nowhere.

These are not hypothetical scenarios. In fact, I am 100% sure that these scenarios are in play right now as we speak.

So, I think that we are currently caught in a futile cycle of testing round-robins which will never end. Because the same people who you dismiss as being negative could go out and get infected, which would mean that you have to test that same person again.

I think the only way out is to stop all the testing and just treat the symptomatic patients. Otherwise, we are flushing valuable resources down the drain for no reason.

You are 100% right!. Maybe the time has come to treat this as another illness in society that we treat as we detect. Nobody runs behind people to check if they have TB or cancer or anything like that. When people fall sick, they visit the doctor and the subsequent treatment begins. I am no doctor, hence please excuse me if I sound idiotic.

We thought tracing and testing is definitely required for COVID-19 because of its highly contagious nature, but there are innumerable and infinite number of various scenarios that defeat us.

[aadya]

Originally Posted by mohansrides

The thing is that unless, by some magical means, we happen to test every one of our 1.3 billion people at the exact same moment in time and then immediately isolate the positives, we will get nowhere.

With due respect to the logic behind testing the entire population hypothesis,I would like to clarify that testing strategy works on different logic for communicable diseases unlike Non communicable disease where testing at a certain frequency(depending the illness) saves future complication.

In COVID-19 myself and many others demanding wider testing mean to test the suspects and not the entire population. The COVID -19 suspects mainly are 1.SARI-severe acute respiratory illness 2.Close contact for positive cases(once at the end of quarantine period - if asympomatic and twice in the isolation period if mildly symptomatic ) 3. Health care workers coming into contact with positive patients. 4.Patients getting hospitalised for any illness in the Red and orange zones.

Wider testing saves precious time and effort for the healthcare providers. A low positive tests in certain areas naturally avoids the fear psychosis and over protectiveness towards suspects. This helps in treating with due merit to their respective illnesses, rather than wasting time and resources towards a non existent Covid. And testing hospitalised patients helps in finding missed cases(called as Case surveillance in Preventive medicine) there by identifying new case clusters when positives are detected. It also prevents cross infection to other patients and Healthcare providers.

This is the strategy unconsciously Doctors do for various infective diseases. For many experienced practitioners the flow chart is imbibed in the mind and they test in a pattern, sometimes even they are not aware of, just like driving style.