[Eddy]

Originally Posted by JojyKerala

I myself travelled during the 2nd half of March and had no form of screening whatsoever..

I returned to India on 6th March and was thermal scanned at the Delhi airport. I also signed a declaration on travel history and any Covid related symptoms. This was when I came from a country that had 0 cases till then (Sri Lanka).

[poloman]

Originally Posted by msdivy

India, the daily new cases are increasing. It was 100 when Lockdown 1.0 was announced, it was 1000 when Lockdown 2.0 was announced, it was 3,000 when Lockdown 3.0 was announced and now it is in 5,000s when Lockdown 4.0 is announced.

Do you call it a lockdown when more than a crore people are travelling across the country? Lockdown 3 was total farce. So as Lockdown 4. The cases as expected have spread to the villages of the country. The situation will stabilize only after the migrant movement is complete.

Now slowly the blame on Govt will shift from economic misery to death toll as expected.

[ramzsys]

An exercise to those who are mercilessly thrashing every government move regarding covid:

There is a very severe cyclone spinning in Bay of Bengal. IMD in its latest report has said the cyclone is said to cross somewhere between Orissa to West Bengal within three days. The intensity isn't dropping even after crossing the coast, so widespread rains and destructive winds are a given.

Put yourself in the shoes of a CM of either of the state. To save lives, you gotta put vulnerable people who are living in the cyclone crossing coastline and at least 50 km inland in a storm shelter (if you have one, ie).

Without air traffic, there isn't much vital weather data fed into international weather models so there is no way to ask expertise help to pin point the location, so it makes logical sense to evacuate the coastline of both states.

Practically a meaningless exercise bordering on lunacy because cyclone crosses only a specific geographical width and to cause hardship to all sections of population of the coastline of two states is very stupid akin to the lockdown announced on March end.

What would you do?

[laluks]

Originally Posted by Gannu_1

In green zones (like here in Kerala for instance), it is business as usual - all products ship and they are delivered within the pre-covid timeframes.

I have been receiving deliveries from boodmo since last week Monday, have received three already. These were ordered before the lock down and we mutually discussed and agreed I will wait. Amazon took orders since yesterday night, but delivery lead times are high, probably due to surface transport.

[srini1785]

Originally Posted by ramzsys

Without air traffic, there isn't much vital weather data fed into international weather models so there is no way to ask expertise help to pin point the location

Leaving other points aside. By air traffic what exactly do you want to say?. My understanding is that weather data is provided by satellites which are unaffected by the pandemic so pin pointing cyclone location is not going to be a problem. As far as relief is concerned there is the state fire &rescue and the central NDRF which have no restrictions on use of their air craft ( if they have one).

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by JojyKerala

When the 1st lockdown was enforced, we had 500 positive cases. Today, as we enter the 4th lockdown - we are nearing 100,000 cases. Things are only going to go worse from here.
...

I am afraid lockdowns (however farcical )are here to stay for quite a while. Just look at the poll results right here on TBHP. Emotions are more powerful than rational thoughts, and fear is the key here - can't blame anyone. People with young children are especially protective and would want to avoid infection at any cost. Yes, infection will happen, but people want to avoid it for the longest time possible and may even want to believe that they can hide from the virus for ever.

I expect lockdown version 12 at least, because most likely by September there will be another surge across the world, and our administration will again follow suit with "iron-clad" lockdowns - we will die but we will not let the virus succeed! Expect to see western nations look at India in awe as we beat every other nation in deaths due to SARS-COV2 as a minuscule fraction of deaths due to other causes (which the affluent nations would not be able to comprehend in the first place)...

[giri1.8]

Went out for a walk to get essentials, surprised to see many people without mask and worst thing was few people spitting on the streets!

How careless and insensitive can people be? Do note that cases in our zone has exceeded 800 few days back.

[v1p3r]

Originally Posted by ramzsys

An exercise to those who are mercilessly thrashing every government move regarding covid:

There is a very severe cyclone spinning in Bay of Bengal. IMD in its latest report has said the cyclone is said to cross somewhere between Orissa to West Bengal within three days. The intensity isn't dropping even after crossing the coast, so widespread rains and destructive winds are a given.

...

What would you do?

I am given to believe India's early warning systems for cyclones and inclement weather over the Bay of Bengal are world-class, as are the preparation and response protocols. They are the reason the last few incidents resulted in far lower loss of life than expected. Also, from what I gather, Orissa is amongst the better governed states.

Air traffic has no role to play in weather modelling.

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by msdivy

That is why I have been suggesting to monitor the 'Daily New Cases' metric as measure of covid-19 epidemic spread & control .

"Daily new cases" is highly influenced by the number of tests. More the tests you do, the more positive cases you find.

We all know that this virus is highly contagious.

From June 1st week onwards please expect the number of positive cases to raise exponentially, not because of lockdown relaxation but because India will get Antibody testing kits (from Abbott Medicals, and others). These tests give results in 30 minutes or so, and can be done on massive scale compared to current PCR tests.

The right metric to measure is the ratio of positive tests to the number of tests done. Right now, in India the number of tests being done is around 95,000 per day and the number of positives per day is around 4000; thus positive test cases ratio is around 4.2%.

This is the metric which famous American statistician/data scientist Nate Silver gives out on a daily basis. And based on which he recently became very encouraged about US handling of the pandemic.

[mohansrides]

Originally Posted by ABHI_1512

..Sorry for being little melodramatic here but what has happened to the migrant workers because of the lockdown is inhuman and dastardly. We may build as many satellites and highways and latest guns and what not in the future but we will never be absolved of these cruel atrocities on our own countrymen !!

Not melodramatic at all. In my lifetime in India, I have not seen human tragedy of this scale that has not been caused by a natural disaster.

Before people come and correct me that the virus is a natural disaster; let me say that the migrants deaths are not caused by the virus. They are caused by the lockdown which is our disproportionate response. It need not have been like this at all.

Someone told me that India's normal death rate was 0.8%; and that the virus would have increased that by 20%. So, if I understand that right, for every 100 people, 0.8 people are dying during normal course of time. A 20% increase in death rate would mean that this virus would have resulted in 0.96 people dying for every 100 people. And for that we are penalising all 100 people to supposedly save them from this virus. I have not heard of a more foolish math. Also, this math does not account for the deaths that occur DUE to the lockdown; such as chronic patients and general people not getting access to healthcare; or migrants dying due to fatigue or due to being forced to trudge home. And this math definitely does not account for the deaths that will occur over the longer term due to the societal response to the fear that has been sown in people's minds. What a travesty!!

Originally Posted by kiku007

The level of control the CPC exercises over its citizens is quite shocking.

Indeed!! In my years abroad, I have prided myself on us being the world's biggest democracy. Yes, we have our problems. But, would I want us to be like China? No, thank you.

Originally Posted by kiku007

..90K+ cases and 53K+ active cases and India doesn't have community spread. If people believe that but question China's transparency (or the lack of) then it's the heights of irony.

I suppose that the government was, and is, trying to prevent panic. But, anyone with half a brain would have figured out that community spread happened long before we even detected the first case. This virus is enormously resourceful. It needs very little to survive and propagate.

Originally Posted by Asish_VK

We had the lockdowns of the sake of it. The government is not strict enough and the public is not aware of the depth of problem....

People are roaming freely where I live in Bangalore, without any mask or concept of social distancing.

Originally Posted by poloman

Do you call it a lockdown when more than a crore people are travelling across the country? Lockdown 3 was total farce. So as Lockdown 4.

Sirs... you are right about one thing. A lockdown by definition means that no one, and I mean NO ONE, should venture out. But sirs, please understand that a lockdown by that definition is simply not possible in India.

Even if everyone obeyed (by way of some miracle) we would still have the virus spreading due to essential services. We need food, water, medicine and quite a few other things to live. The process of delivering those products and services to us will result in the virus spreading. No way around that reality.

On top of that, we have an economic landscape where people just don't have money to eat if they have not had a chance to earn that day.

What do you expect in such scenarios? That the infections would drop? This virus is not H1N1, or Nipah, or any of those pathogens that are more self-limiting in transmission. This virus has enormous stamina and versatility. It can wait entire generations out. To expect that a lockdown of a few weeks will stem the tide is being quite unrealistic.

I actually do not blame the government at all for the virus's spread. I don't think that anyone can do anything against this virus.

Originally Posted by poloman

Now slowly the blame on Govt will shift from economic misery to death toll as expected.

Well, whether people will blame the government for virus deaths remains to be seen. I personally will not. That said, the governments' (both central and state) handling of the crisis has been far from ideal. Even states like Kerala are being delusional if they think that they have defeated the virus.

The only way forward is to accept risk, and to expressly ramp up capacity, innovation and boldness in healthcare. The recent home quarantine rules for asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic patients is a good first step. We should not be choking our hospitals with people who don't really need any help.

Also, we need to ramp down the fear. The fear is driving people to do absolutely horrible things. Covid is NOT a death sentence. It is in fact very very very far from a death sentence for more than 90% of the infected. Punishment for ill-treatment of anyone due to Covid must be to require the perpetrator/s to spend a month with other Covid patients in a quarantine center.

Originally Posted by ramzsys

An exercise to those who are mercilessly thrashing every government move regarding covid:

There is a very severe cyclone spinning in Bay of Bengal....
What would you do?

You are making the point for us. Besides this virus, we have a 1000 other problems as a society and as a country. A lockdown achieves nothing other than to tie our hands to respond to every other crisis out there.

A lockdown uses up all capacity of policemen, doctors and administrators. Also, it allows no way to earn money to compensate the first-responders, or even to pay for other essentials like food, water, and medicine. So, with no capacity in personnel and in finances, how can we respond to cyclones, or to terrorists, or to economic offensives, or yes, even to other pathogens lurking out there?

Incidentally, we have a large population of diabetics who have been denied their daily exercise. Diabetes is a gateway illness. It opens the door to N other maladies. With this self-perpetuating lockdown, we are shooting ourselves in the foot (no pun intended) in a thousand ways. A lady I saw on the news in the US said "we are committing suicide so that we don't have to get sick. This is madness". I could not agree more.

Originally Posted by mvadg

..I'm not good at reading the general public's mind it seems Now I'm trying to understand the reason why almost 50% of our members still favor the lockdown. I've read their points of view, but I was expecting a change as the situation progressed. Oh, well!

Originally Posted by mvadg

..Just look at the poll results right here on TBHP. Emotions are more powerful than rational thoughts, and fear is the key here - can't blame anyone. ...

You are reading this a bit incorrectly. In the original poll, over 60% had said yes to the lockdown. Now, that number is down to between 44% and 45%.

Also, in the original poll, only 10% voted a categorical no for the lockdown. That number is now up to 41%.

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

"Daily new cases" is highly influenced by the number of tests. More the tests you do, the more positive cases you find.

By daily new cases, I mean new cases requiring medical & healthcare help.

Originally Posted by poloman

Do you call it a lockdown when more than a crore people are traveling across the country?

The name 'lockdown', & its definition is controlled by Govt

Originally Posted by ramzsys

What would you do?

The answer is 'preparation'. The role of the Govt is to prepare and be ready for the welfare of its people. Govt machinery has well trained, well paid & well-endowed bureaucracy to foresee & tackle such scenarios.

Cannot go into war without preparation.

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by msdivy

By daily new cases, I mean new cases requiring medical & healthcare help.

In that case, please revisit your post and revise your numbers. The numbers you had put up in the post I quoted are all unconditional daily new cases.

[ABHI_1512]

Originally Posted by vivek95

Nothing wrong in you being melodramatic. I would say, the Covid scare and panic is way more inhuman and dastardly. Anyhow, we are still overwhelmed with the entire focus shifted only on this stupid Covid. Mumbai has collapsed.

Right from from very beginning, the way the virus scare was drilled into the minds of all from the one way conversation while announcing the lockdown, why is it even a surprise that two months into the lockdown and fear coupled with panic still grips scores of people and which is resulting in jam packed hospitals ! Mumbai is bearing the brunt right now and I only hope things improve from here on.

Originally Posted by ramzsys

Put yourself in the shoes of a CM of either of the state. To save lives, you gotta put vulnerable people who are living in the cyclone crossing coastline and at least 50 km inland in a storm shelter (if you have one, ie).

What would you do?

I suppose you don’t follow news too often, not to offend you but Odisha has countered more severe super cyclones with utmost sincerity and managed to save lives with absolute minimum casualties. The preparedness of Odisha government in tackling Cyclone Phani is an example worth studying. And since you asked, the link will provide most of your answers I suppose.

https://wap.business-standard.com/ar...1500234_1.html

Originally Posted by mohansrides

Not melodramatic at all. In my lifetime in India, I have not seen human tragedy of this scale that has not been caused by a natural disaster.

That’s the travesty actually, a human tragedy which was perfectly avoidable at the first place. When time was there to transport they were left to rot and now that it has turned into a complete mess, special trains are being arranged. Tells us the entire story of incompetence in a rather decrepit way and that’s not quite fathomable even in these lockdown days !

[Dr.Naren]

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

From June 1st week onwards please expect the number of positive cases to raise exponentially, not because of lockdown relaxation but because India will get Antibody testing kits (from Abbott Medicals, and others). These tests give results in 30 minutes or so, and can be done on massive scale compared to current PCR tests.

Not Correct!!

Antibody testing is for screening and it's not for diagnosis of Covid-19. If a person is tested positive for antibodies, it doesn't mean he/she for sure has Covid-19, could be an ongoing case or recovered too. Positive antibody test won't add any new cases unless it's confirmed by RT-PCR.

[balenoed_]

Karnataka not to allow entry of people from Gujarat, Maharashtra, Kerala, TN: CM BS Yediyurappa

Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa on Monday said that people from Gujarat, Maharashtra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu will not be allowed in the state till May 31.

Why Kerala in the list, a state which has way lesser cases at the moment?