Why are India’s covid rates skyrocketing

In India, five million unmasked people stood in a river singing loudly for days, literally on top of one another.

It is generally the same story whether it is India Brazil, Europe or the US. COVID 19 always is able to cause a surge in cases as long as there is an opportunity to infect. In India it was a familiar story. Containment had been successful and the government eased restrictions. There was evidence of case growth in March and the government did not react. A highly transmissible variant took over and caused a massive outbreak. There was almost no protection from vaccination as all the rich countries bought up the first available vaccine supplies and patent protections prevented India, which has a massive vaccine manufacturing industry, from making affordable generic vaccines. The US and EU blocked attempts to lift patent protections for vaccines. It may not have been in time to save India from the current outbreak, but there are still a lot of countries in Asia and Africa that have not had a big surge in cases that are sitting ducks for a highly transmissible variant.

This is Jim Kiler wrote:

In India, five million unmasked people stood in a river singing loudly for days, literally on top of one another.

Yep. I forgot about Ramadan. I thought it already passed but I guess it’s still going on. I guess no mask mandates if you’re in India or Muslim. As if they needed anymore trash in their landfills (streets).

india anna jones wrote:

The news I’ve heard hasn’t mentioned contact tracing or a cause. I know. Bad sanitation. High population density. Systemic racism- even worse than the US (is that possible 😉). But why is it so delayed? Thailand just went back into lockdown when it looked like they had pretty much eradicated it. They’re sorta close to each other. Is there a connection between these skyrocketing rates?

Well, India has a LOT of people who are living almost on top of each other. A lot of them have very little. So I think this was expected. Of course the current Modi government doesn't really help either.

there's no cure for a virus, just inoculation. the virus will keep doing what a virus does until there are no more hosts, either due to herd immunity (vaccines are just controlled herd immunity) or.... well if there are no more hosts.

It's all part of a conspiracy to take away American's guns. India is part of it because even though it is a completely different country far away whose people are dying on mass, lets not forget that the US has the Second Amendment and that's important. Also, there is Obama and Hunter Biden once owned a laptop. So, that's what's really happening and why you should refuse to wear a mask. Every time you wear a mask a person in India dies. So, lets all continue to cower in fear in our homes clutching our guns, as God intended. Amen.

Even more surprising i sthat after all the photos and videos of Chinese partying and dancing maskless for 10 months they have barely and cases or deaths to show for. Hmmmm

Around the beginning of 2021 it looked like India had the virus somewhat under control. Modi et al., desperate to reopen the economy so they can stay in power, did so even though a) just as in Russia, the actual cases/hospitalizations/deaths were underreported by official policy, and b) vaccines were not yet readily available.

The NYTimes has been covering the epidemic in India well, and I believe the NYT's Covid-19 articles are not behind the usual paywall but instead are free. Here's one:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/05/01/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-cases

The global situation is very bad, and getting worse. Those of us in NYC (aka the capital of the world) are mostly keeping masks on, but the City and State are moving to lift restrictions. This seems like a terrible idea to me, because people from the rest of the world come to New York--and some will bring SARS-Cov-2 with them.

India appears to be having large growth spikes because of their high population. In terms of per capita case growths over last week they are not spiking as much as other locations. The greatest growth was in Seychelles (which ironically has one of the highest vaccination rates thanks to China).

New Cases per Million citizens last 7 days:

1 Seychelles 10,308 (130 vaccinations / 100 people, 2nd highest)

2 Maldives 5,703 (75 vaccinations / 100 people, 15th highest)

3 Uruguay 4,814 (54 vaccinations / 100 people, 26th highest)

4 Bahrain 4,505 (78 vaccinations / 100 people, 13th highest)

...

28 India 1,904 (11 vaccinations / 100 people, 92nd highest)

...

58 USA 1,066 (74 vaccinations / 100 people, 16th highest)

...

117 UK 219 (75 vaccinations / 100 people, 17th highest)

...

142 Israel 56 (116 vaccinations / 100 people, 4th highest)

I think the main issue is some of these new variants are more easily spread in warmer climates, which is why they are having growth in places like India that were largely spared during the first phase.

He wasn't talking about Ramadan, moron.

india anna jones wrote:

This is Jim Kiler wrote:

In India, five million unmasked people stood in a river singing loudly for days, literally on top of one another.

Yep. I forgot about Ramadan. I thought it already passed but I guess it’s still going on. I guess no mask mandates if you’re in India or Muslim. As if they needed anymore trash in their landfills (streets).

He wasn't talking about Ramadan, moron.

The 1918 pandemic in India killed something like 17 to 18 million. The population density in India is very high, the distribution of vaccines has gone slower than much of the world. Thailand and India are in the same part of the world but you have to go through both Myanmar and Bangladesh to get to India from Thailand (Kolkata to Bangkok) it is 2,000 miles and would take an awfully long time if traveling is even possible.

India’s covid death and case rates are NOT skyrocketing. It is a media hoax and continued perpetuation of sensationalistic reporting.

India’s covid death rate is something like 160 per 100,000 people, which is under the world average of 200 and way less than that of the US and other major European countries. Number of cases is a similar story.

What is being laid bare is the inadequacy of the Indian hospital system. India has something like 2.3 ICU beds per 100,000 people. The US has 26 per 100,000. Otherwise, the infection and mortality rates in India are much better.

India has 1.4 billion people. That will result in what look like staggering infection and death totals, but not in a relative sense.

This is Jim Kiler wrote:

In India, five million unmasked people stood in a river singing loudly for days, literally on top of one another.

Are you claiming unmasked, sweating, cramped up people standing in the same water they use as a toilet is unhealthy?

rump it up wrote:

It's all part of a conspiracy to take away American's guns. India is part of it because even though it is a completely different country far away whose people are dying on mass, lets not forget that the US has the Second Amendment and that's important. Also, there is Obama and Hunter Biden once owned a laptop. So, that's what's really happening and why you should refuse to wear a mask. Every time you wear a mask a person in India dies. So, lets all continue to cower in fear in our homes clutching our guns, as God intended. Amen.

Ahhh, now it all makes sense.

Thank you

context wrote:

India’s covid death and case rates are NOT skyrocketing. It is a media hoax and continued perpetuation of sensationalistic reporting.

Simply (and completely) wrong here. India's reported cases/hospitalizations/deaths from Covid-19 are actually understating the totals.

But maybe you're just trolling, in which case 3/10.

Covid illness/deaths follow metabolic illness, especially diabetes. India is in the midst of a massive epidemic...of diabetes. Lots of starchy, sugary food and seed oils is the Satan's brew which is driving all of this misery. It hits the highest income groups worst of all, mirroring covid.

https://www.firstpost.com/india/diabetes-is-indias-fastest-growing-disease-72-million-cases-recorded-in-2017-figure-expected-to-nearly-double-by-2025-4435203.html

kibitzer wrote:

context wrote:

India’s covid death and case rates are NOT skyrocketing. It is a media hoax and continued perpetuation of sensationalistic reporting.

Simply (and completely) wrong here. India's reported cases/hospitalizations/deaths from Covid-19 are actually understating the totals.

https://www.foxnews.com/health/why-indias-coronavirus-data-undercounted

But maybe you're just trolling, in which case 3/10.

Meh. Just more anecdotal claims in order to push a narrative.

To be clear, I do agree that infection rates have been vastly underreported generally, as huge numbers of people have caught the virus but have not been tested. This is true not just in India but in all countries.

Even if the data is off by a factor of 100% (i.e. double India’s numbers) they would still be performing better than most of the western world.

If you look at what is happening right now it is quite concerning. Cases have been rising incredibly rapidly over the past month, and a seven day average for deaths is 3572. If you predict deaths based on a proportion of cases the expectation for the upcoming weeks is very concerning. If you predict a two week lag between cases and deaths you would be looking at something on the order of 6100 deaths/day in two weeks. If you predict a four week like between cases and deaths we will be talking over 15000deaths/day