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Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom
Overall, you make some very good points, so forgive me for nitpicking a couple of points.
Ventilators are not something that can be easily delivered to home.... |
I was merely suggesting that we explore ways to deconstruct the problem down to more atomic parts that can then be scaled wide. Yes, some aspects may not lend themselves to further simplification. But, it behooves us to try. Certainly, I have heard incredible stories of doctors working in war zones who innovate out of sheer necessity. Well, the time has now come for us to think out-of-the-box about healthcare, and to explore options that go beyond current care giving models in the field.
I know that Team-BHP is full of well-travelled netizens. So, most of you know that in the West, one would have to go to Urgent Care clinics or even the ER when one experiences garden variety systems. By contrast, in India one could simply go to one's local chemist and ask for medication to treat symptomatic illnessess. Imagine if every sick person in India went to the ER or to an UC center!! That would be pandemonium. So, we have already demonstrated that we can take western medicine and scale it to some measure by having the pharmacist, in the short term, serve as a proxy for a full doctor. Now, we need to see how else we can break down the care model and then distribute parts of it to new actors who we will identify in our existing system.
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Originally Posted by humyum I don't think the lockdown can be removed after the 14th, look at the rise in cases everyday, only somedays back it was 100, then 200 and now today it has been 500 + in a single day with 120 plus dead all over the country in total
If lockdown is removed in a populated country like India, we are going the US way in no time and that will be equal to a genocide.... |
Kindly requesting everyone here to exercise restraint in your choice of certain words. "Genocide" is an extremely heavy term, and one which is completely inappropriate to describe any aspect of what is going on around us. Genocide means intentional infliction of pain or death on a people, and that too on a mass scale.
In today's context, neither the deaths resulting from the virus, nor those stemming from the measures to combat virus, will qualify as anything close to genocide; because both sets of unfortunate outcomes were / are not intentionally inflicted by any human being on society. In fact, any fatalities that are stemming due to the economic shutdown are outcomes that are exactly the opposite of the intended result from the lockdown, which is to save as many people as possible.
By extension, if and when the lockdown is lifted, it will be because such a measure is no longer economically viable. So, at that time, any fatalities that come about after the lockdown has potentially been lifted, should NOT be attributed to purposeful or intentional negligence by the government. In fact, if anything, the steps taken thus far clearly indicate that the government is willing to go the distance to ensure public health and safety. So, let us ease up on the pressure on our administrators.
Now, coming to the topic of the lockdown itself, I will agree that now that the lockdown is in place, it may be better to go the whole hog and extend it by a couple of weeks to give the healthcare teams enough time to fully encircle this virus. Be that as it may, it is wrong for us to equate an extension decision with rising test case positives.
Because a rise in cases of Covid positive people is sheer inevitability. Not just here, everywhere else in the globe too. Talking about India, there are more positives bubbling up to the surface now because the administration is finally getting the opportunity to cast a wider net in testing - private labs and hospitals are being roped in and we also have more test kits available now I think. So, as the net keeps widening, we are going to see more and more people test positive. But, a rise in infections does NOT mean that everyone in the country is going to experience unimaginable suffering and death on a mass scale. That is certainly NOT case.
Let us get the facts straight:
Infection Rate -
Plenty of people who have been in very close proximity of infected patients have NOT tested positive. In fact, that's the majority even if we build in a big margin of error due to false negatives. To give some examples -
- The entire family of the man who died in Dharavi have NOT tested positive despite living with him in a tight space.
- Many people who came in contact with Kanika Kapoor have NOT tested positive.
- Boris Johnson's entire cabinet, who we can virtually guarantee have all been tested, have come out unscathed even though they must have been in closed spaces with their PM breathing in re-circulated air from centrally air conditioned offices.
So, while it is true that this virus is more easily transmitted than other pathogens, it is not true that everyone who comes in contact with an infected patient will get infected. That sort of thinking is more dangerous than the virus itself.
Fatality Rate -
On an average, this virus has a fatality rate of 3% to 4%. Even if we conservatively round that up to 5%, that would be 5% of the people that the virus actually infects, and NOT 5% of the whole population. So, assuming that one does get infected in the first place, there is a 95% chance that that person is going to sail through their illness without major incident. Yes, that is a NINE FIVE, NINETY FIVE PERCENT rate for good outcomes.
And yet, the media has been reporting, in big bold letters, nothing but the number of infections and deaths. Reports of people who test negative are almost absent from the public record. Also, there are lots of stories by ex-Covid patients talking about how the illness was tough to endure. But, none from the majority of the people who had an easier time of it. Any reports by people,
such as this one, about the excellent care they received, is only intended to encourage people to submit to scrutiny and care by the authorities; not to allay any fears of the illness itself. I am afraid that all this is perpetuating virtual paranoia in people. Let me underscore this with an incident that happened here in our housing society.
Our maid requested financial help urgently. With schools being closed and her husband being away in what would be an essential job, she could not leave the house to withdraw money from an ATM. So, she asked for cash instead of a bank transfer. No problem. We instructed her to come to the gate of the society to collect the money. She was to come alone, and I was to go alone and hand her the money through the gate, while ensuring sufficient distance. Neither my maid nor anyone in either of our houses is symptomatic as of now. But, despite these factors and despite taking every precaution, when word got around that I was going to pay our maid, it caused a big uproar in our society WhatsApp group. I had all and sundry warning me and lecturing me. This from many people who have not even had the decency to pay the societal maintenance dues for months, and in a couple of cases by a few years. Here are people of means who are brazenly free-loading off the rest of us. And these very people were lecturing me on social responsibility for merely trying to help our employee out in her time of need; and that too for trying to do so while taking every precaution advised by the authorities despite neither of us being termed to be at risk.
Going by this incident and other stories of doctors and policemen being attacked and airline crew being ostracized, I fear that we have lost all courage as a society.
It is OK, and even correct, for us to take all reasonable precautions at the present time. What is NOT OK is for us to cower in fear against this pathogen while we routinely ask our young men and women to risk their lives for our safety - be it doctors, policemen during this pandemic, or the defense personnel guarding our borders at any point in time.
So, we need to stop thinking that a lockdown needs to be in place until this virus is completely eradicated. Because that simply is NOT going to happen. Fact is that while we are focussed on Covid 19, there are a zillion other problems, not to mention other pathogens, sharpening their knives against humanity.
Cheers