'We're All in This Together': Dr Fauci Says World Has Failed India as Covid Cases Surge (theguardian.com) 339
Dr Anthony Fauci, the White House's chief medical adviser, has said countries have failed to unite to provide an adequate global response to prevent the "tragic" coronavirus outbreak from overwhelming India, and singled out wealthier nations for failing to provide equitable access to healthcare around the world. From a report: Speaking to Guardian Australia from the US, Fauci said the situation in India had highlighted global inequality. "The only way that you're going to adequately respond to a global pandemic is by having a global response, and a global response means equity throughout the world," Fauci said. "And that's something that, unfortunately, has not been accomplished. Often when you have diseases in which there is a limited amount of intervention, be it therapeutic or prevention, this is something that all the countries that are relatively rich countries or countries that have a higher income have to pay more attention to."
India recorded 360,960 new cases in the 24 hours to Wednesday morning according to health ministry data, another new daily global record. The ministry also said that India's total number of fatalities had passed 200,000 to stand at 201,187. The latest epidemiological update from the World Health Organization (WHO) issued on Tuesday said Covid-19 cases increased globally for the ninth consecutive week, with nearly 5.7m new cases reported. India accounts for the majority of cases, with 2,172,063 new cases reported in the past week -- a 52% increase.
India recorded 360,960 new cases in the 24 hours to Wednesday morning according to health ministry data, another new daily global record. The ministry also said that India's total number of fatalities had passed 200,000 to stand at 201,187. The latest epidemiological update from the World Health Organization (WHO) issued on Tuesday said Covid-19 cases increased globally for the ninth consecutive week, with nearly 5.7m new cases reported. India accounts for the majority of cases, with 2,172,063 new cases reported in the past week -- a 52% increase.
I wonder if he's ever been to India (Score:4, Insightful)
If he had ever been to India, he'd know why they're struggling, and it has nothing to do with the rest of the world "failing" them.
Re:I wonder if he's ever been to India (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sure you know much more about it than he does.
Re: I wonder if he's ever been to India (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you're half right. I think the politicians in India couldn't risk taking a victory lap, and many people foolishly believed them. Not everyone, mind you, but if enough of the other billion people you share country with act stupidly, you're pretty much screwed.
But even with the best possible imaginable government in India, India was screwed before the pandemic started. It's a country where 2/3 of families get by on less than $2 day; where huge masses of people are crowded into tenements that wouldn't qualify as a hovel here in the US; with a vast internal migrant labor force (some 500 million), many of whom are effectively homeless. Add to that the fact that B.1.167 is particularly contagious in closed conditions. It spreads between people living together much more aggressively -- families crowded into their hovels, migrants sleeping rough together.
So you can say that India's COVID problems are India's fault -- if by "India" you mean the people who have the political and economic power there. But you can't say it is the fault of most Indians. To be at fault, somebody has to have a choice, and many Indian's don't have any choice but to go out and hustle for their next day's food or travel back to their villages during lockdown so they can fall back on their families -- things that got them beaten by police with batons during the lockdown. And to be sure, migrant workers doing those things created a problem for people who had the savings to shelter in place, but it's not like those particular Indians had any choice.
Re: I wonder if he's ever been to India (Score:4, Informative)
It's a country where 2/3 of families get by on less than $2 day;
WTF? Are you living in 1950? Such extreme poverty still exists, but about 6%, a tenth of your number, even assuming you meant per-person.
India's per-capita nominal GDP is about $2000. But that translates to a per-household PPP of around $30,000.
So as a country, they have come a long way. India has nuclear weapons and a Mars orbiter.
India is one of the world biggest exporters of pharmaceuticals. Nearly half of adults have smartphones.
Lots of poverty, but also a growing middle class and the resources to help themselves.
India was screwed before the pandemic started.
We feared that, but then India was doing OK. Better than US, UK, Brazil. Why did this take a year to happen?
Re:I wonder if he's ever been to India (Score:5, Insightful)
But WTF, does he NOT expect nations to take care of their own first before they give out help out outside nations?
I have no problem with helping other countries. Hell, if you look at past track records of the US with catastrophic events, we are often the first people there helping (Hati and those fairly recent tsunamis that struck somewhere come to mind).
But geez, like a family in troubled times, you take care of your own first and THEN help others.
Our government is there to serve US first, not the world first.
That is the job of every goverment, to serve the interests of their people first.
It does look like vaccine demand is starting to come down a bit in the US, and so, why not start giving some of the astra Zeneca and J&J vaccines we're likely not to be using any time soon...I think Biden has already shipped a bunch of it there.
But still, WTF Fauci....the US government (and any country's government) is there to serve its OWN people first, every time in every thing.
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India is quite capable of manufacturing its own vaccine, they have some of the worlds largest vaccine manufacturers but has respected the patents that the American public paid for and gave to private industry. Likewise for a few other countries, who if given a license, could manufacturer their own.
It seems that paying dividends is more important to some of these companies then saving lives. Considering how much the seed money for those patents came from public funds, the argument that they need to make a re
Re: I wonder if he's ever been to India (Score:4, Informative)
I'll just leave this [nytimes.com] here. 37 fully vaccinated doctors sick, in intensive care. Youth, intrnsive care. 2 months old babies, intensive care.
I think you're not fully aware what "we're in this together" means.
I means that "taking care of my own first" is a losing move, because then the "others" lose. And when we either all win, or all lose, if the others lose, you also lose.
Wait until India's variant hits a fully vaccinated US and doesn't stop.
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You're misrepresenting what was said.
First, the headline:
"Dr Fauci says WORLD has failed India as Covid cases surge"
Then, Fauci's own quotes:
"The only way that you’re going to adequately respond to a global pandemic is by having a global response, and a global response means equity throughout the world,"
"The United States has really revved up their activity in helping out India we’re sending oxygen, remdesivir, personal protective equipment, a variety of other medications and soon we’ll b
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Just one Indian company is manufacturing nearly 100 million vaccine doses a month. Sure, that's still a couple of years to vaccinate the whole population but they're increasing production and there are other companies manufacturing too.
Add in the manufacturing capacity that will be freed in other countries (e.g. the UK and US) and India only really needs to get through this current peak and they'll be able to get enough of a herd immunity to keep the R number under 1.
Anyone know what happened? (Score:5, Insightful)
Did they get hit by a new variant or something? Was the gov't just lying all along? Did they just get lax? I know they're allowing their various religious activities (e.g. the big pilgrimages) again.
Something drastic changed. If you look at the graphs it looks like somebody changed the exponent. It's nuts.
Re: Anyone know what happened? (Score:5, Informative)
They held mass public events and festivals is what happened. Variants...no variants...cell towers...whatever.
Bottom line is you personally cannot infect 500 people if you don't get in the faces of 500 people.
Masks...no masks...whatever. The only mathematically guaranteed way of limiting the exponent is by limiting the number of people you snuggle up to in any two week period. The exponent is roughly equal to that number of people...but that's math. And math is hard enough already and damn near impossible for people too scared to think straight.
Re: Anyone know what happened? (Score:5, Informative)
Correction: the exponent is a monotonic function of that number.
Roughly 0 for 2 or fewer contacts
Roughly 1 for 8 or fewer
Roughly 2 for 27 or fewer etc
Think of it as a wave propaging in an N dimensional space. The daily count is the circumference/surface area/volume/whatever of the wave front which is the dimensionality of the social network minus 1.
Re:Anyone know what happened? (Score:5, Informative)
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I don't know that anyone knows for sure what happened yet, but a lot of people suspect it was related to Kumbh Mela:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/12/india/india-covid-kumbh-mela-crowd-intl-hnk-scli/index.html [cnn.com]
Re:Anyone know what happened? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Anyone know what happened? (Score:4, Insightful)
Looking at a logarithmic graph of confirmed Covid-19 deaths [1], it the death count increases roughly as a straight line. This implies exponential growth as the scale is logarithmic.
Extrapolating to the start of the line I get around March 8th. However, the curve is a 7-day-rolling value, so deaths actually started a few days earlier. And infections are likely 2-3 weeks before death. This gives us sometime around say 15th of February, or a few days later.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/exp... [ourworldindata.org]
Re: Anyone know what happened? (Score:5, Informative)
Exponential growth means people were mixing all over (essentially infinite-dimensional topology).
Linear growth in total cases means people weren't mixing at all maybe with a few of the same people with some overlap, just a pulse traveling down a wire.
Quadratic growth means people were mixing with their immediate neighbors.
Cubic growth means lots and lots of friends across town.
Rough approximations of course, but a good way to check if it's behavior or something else. If it's suddenly a more contagious version, but the same behavior, then you'd see a bend in the curve as the exponent changes. If it's people mixing more, you'd see it going from subexponential to exponential.
Again: if you think this is woo woo hand waving you're right. Which is also why "zomg more contagious" claims also need to be taken with a grain if salt. "More contagious" means they fit a curve and pulled out a bigger slope and attributed it to viral mutation rather than human behavior.
Re:Anyone know what happened? (Score:5, Insightful)
According to the news I read it was the first and third. People thought they had licked it, so masking and distancing stopped - especially outside cities. Their prime minister had giant political rallies that have been criticized as superspreader events. Then a new variant with two mutations arose. The first is a "more contagious/spreading" mutation. The second is also helping the spread, but I'm not sure what it is. The reporting was a little vague as to the second mutation's effect, but maybe it helps pierce natural immunity from earlier strains.
The positivity rate among tests has jumped from 3% to 35%, which is a good indicator it was not just a lack of testing a earlier.
Re:Anyone know what happened? (Score:5, Insightful)
From my understanding, they grossly underestimated the first wave, celebrated too early (involving politics no less to make it even worse), which ultimately brought on a voracious second wave, in one of the most densely populated countries on the entire planet.
On top of that, India appears to have done what I predicted many countries would do in the name of National Security/Pride; lie about their COVID numbers.
The world failed India? Perhaps not as much as India failed India. We're here to help, not take the damn blame. Perhaps Dr. Fauci should be prescribed a couple of Shut-The-Fuck-Ups with a glass of water and call someone with a more measured approach in the morning.
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Do you really think Fauci was saying that India wasn't to blame?
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Do you really think Fauci was saying that India wasn't to blame?
"The World has Failed India", certainly has the implication that we are more to blame for that, than India.
"We", are not in charge of India. India is. They took steps to be quite dismissive of the virus, when variants were known and breeding, in favor of religious events that created massive gatherings and little concern of safety. All in one of the most populated countries on the planet.
Again, we're here to help, not left feeling berated and guilty for not providing "equity throughout the world". Easy
Re:Anyone know what happened? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Anyone know what happened? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, he's absolutely right. When you're talking about something like a pandemic, the whole world really is in the same boat. The optimal strategy for things like vaccines is to use them where they'll do the most to reduce the number of people infected, reducing the chance of mutations and further spread. Somebody in India getting vaccinated is a benefit to you, me, and everyone else, not just that person, and not just people in India.
Vaccinating hot spots (like the US) first is a good idea. India has unfortunately moved from being a place where it was pretty well under control to being almost as bad as the US, and likely worse in the near future.
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Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree, it's an absolute farce to say the world failed India:
- This happened over a year since the COVID-19 outbreak went widespread, this has given them plenty of example cases of how horrible wrong it can go quickly - the US, Brazil, the UK if you play politics, so that's on them for being arrogant enough to think they were special.
- India is a Covax recipient nation, which is absurd when it's the 6th largest economy in the world, when it has the largest vaccine manufacturing capacit
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You're asking what happened? In a country where it takes 5 years to resolve a parking ticket? It's simple, they weren't testing people. In a country where 70% of their population resides in rural farming communities and roads that are so dangerous they have sprouted their own documentaries, distribution is also a problem.
Re:Anyone know what happened? (Score:5, Informative)
The positivity rate jumped from 3% to 35%. That's indicitive of it not being a testing failure.
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No, that proves the opposite. Spontaneous Generation isn't a thing; not even for COVID; despite what the TV tells you to think. Jumping from 3% to 35% tells me that in the beginning you were testing communities that were not impacted, then all of a sudden you got test results back from the communities that were. Again, mostly rural communities. Not large cities with centralized testing facilities and dedicated lab equipment. Also a superstitious people, many would never bother getting tested if they truly b
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The numbers alone don't tell you what happened, because there are multiple potential causes.
Re:Anyone know what happened? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, they've got the B1617 variant, but it's not significantly worse than B1117 or B11248. The problem is that the Indian government declared victory too early, and people believed the government, even though scientists were urging caution. The media largely went along with the politicians, publishing speculative stories about *how* India had beaten the virus (herd immunity, natural resistance), when they should have been asking *whether* India had beaten the virus. People wanted good news, and the government and media happily pandered to that.
SARS-COV-2 is a virus that is uniquely adapted to spreading in immunologically susceptible populations that don't take precautions. It's a black swan event; there's never been anything like it. SARS-COV-2 is like how my doctor characterizes diabetes: like a vicious dog on short chain. As long as you keep the dog on the chain you can live with it, but the instant you let it off the chain it will maul you.
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1. Bad communication lines, especially with rural area - difficult to get a clear picture of a fast moving target.
1.a. Once realized the information may have been withheld for a bit out of pride, but once it was realized that a nightmare was occurring going public was the only choice.
2. Woefully lacking medical capacity and capabilities (rural areas most specifically, but the effect is/was probably everywhere).
I guarantee India had a much higher rates than reported during 2020. They either didn't know f
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They reopened too quick, that's what. They saw the numbers go down, decided it was over and celebrated. Not too surprising since it's fest
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That's exponential growth for you. A variant, underreporting from rural areas, people getting fed up with restrictions, any number of other factors, mix them up, and it starts growing. Slowly at first. Looks under control, but it's not. Then whoosh.
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cf. the original "common cold" which is ALSO a corona virus
"Common cold" refers to several different viruses. One of the least common among them is a coronavirus strain. The one you get over and over is a rhinovirus, of which there are double-digit strains that affect humans, each of which looks like an entirely different virus to the immune system.
... B1617 is a worse strain, its closer to the south african one and maybe even worse, it can re-infect, bypassing already procured immune cells from a first infection and is more resistant to most vaccines ...
All coronavirus strains can reinfect, particularly if the first infection was mild. B1617 *may* be more likely to reinfect, and *may* be more likely to infect vaccinated people, but that's mostly speculation at this
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Talk is cheap (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Talk is cheap (Score:5, Insightful)
Talk is cheap. Unless he has some proposal that would have sped up the creation and then production of vaccines he's just flapping his arms and his lips after the fact.
Actually there are definite concrete actions the US can take.
First they can ease off the DPA so India has the materials to manufacture vaccines [thehindu.com] and they can send over some of the 60m AstraZeneca doses that they have and won't use [bbc.com].
I do get the urge to prioritize your own population first, but hording life-saving materials that you won't even use is way over the line.
Meanwhile he's free to donate as much of his personal wealth as he wishes to create a more equitable world. I'm sure he's doing that as we speak.
As I'm sure you've already donated a huge portion of your personal wealth to all the causes you care about, because otherwise such as a statement would make you a hypocrite.
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As I'm sure you've already donated a huge portion of your personal wealth to all the causes you care about, because otherwise such as a statement would make you a hypocrite.
Yea, but the OP didn't make his/her money off the backs of a series of p-hacking scandals and a lockdown that benefits him at huge costs to the rest of us.
Re:Talk is cheap (Score:5, Informative)
It's as if you didn't even read the article. Fauci specifically mentions the COVAX initiative [who.int], and then gives a fairly long list of proposals, as listed in the article.
I know it's not popular to read the article on Slashdot, but if you are going to libel someone, you really should read it.
Just a reminder why "we're all in this together" (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why it drives me nuts to see this, and to see things like this [theverge.com].
We really are all in this together, whether we like it or not. And if you think you can just close the boarders think again. The people who make money off open boarders aren't going to let you.
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And if you think you can just close the boarders think again. The people who make money off open boarders aren't going to let you.
I can fix that. Right now.
I'll just take their boards away.
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In the modern world, if we wait for herd immunity, we'll be waiting decades. It's time to mostly-carefully-re-open a
I disagree (Score:2)
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Well, the polio vaccine was a pretty easy sell at first because polio victims very visibly walked (with a cane) or wheeled down the street, and literally stacked up in long-term care wards. When the eradication program started gaining ground it was a tougher sell.
We're very good at making bodies disappear, particularly in the west. If things get out of hand enough for that system to get overwhelmed, people will be clamouring for vaccinations. Maslow's pyramid. Politicking is a luxury available to those who
Yes, but the US is different (Score:2)
Students of racial history in the US will remember the Tuskegee incident, in which the US deliberately infected people of African descent with syphilis just to study how it would spread.
The United States has a long history of earning mistrust with the public in general, and minorities in particular. From driving Native Americans off their lands, to giving them smallpox blankets, to interning the Japanese during World War II, to exposing civilians to deadly radiation, to deliberately exposing them to LSD
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The people who make money off open boarders aren't going to let you.
Vietnam is closing theirs. [dhakatribune.com]
Re:Just a reminder why "we're all in this together (Score:5, Insightful)
Vietnam has closed it borders November 2019.
Everyone coming in has quarantine.
Just like ever 1st world country should do it.
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... a healthy 21 year old is not in significant risk of COVID.
I can't imagine being that selfish. Even if they don't care about older strangers, don't these sociopaths have parents and grandparents they care about?
Their grandparents are vaccinated (Score:2)
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I think you've nailed it. Selfishness seems to be at the root of a lot of our problems right now.
It doesn't just show up around the big hot-button issues. People just seem more selfish and entitled in general lately. Just as an example, I've noticed a shocking increase in the amount of litter I see along the roadside. There's so much on a corner not a mile away from me that has looked like someones trash hoard for months now.
I also watched a guy in a late-model pickup, going 15 over the limit, toss two
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People were locked down? It seemed to me like half the country did everything in their power to make as much contact with strangers as humanly possible. I've never seen stores busier than last summer. Grocery stores and home improvement stores were packed with maskless people licking the merchandise!
Maybe if people had actually followed the guidelines, we wouldn't have needed to keep so many restrictions in place.
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Then I guess you should be glad that no vaccines are ever derived from abortion products. Some vaccines used decades-old abortion byproducts to test the vaccine in the early stages, but no abortion byproducts are used in the manufacture of any of the vaccines, AFAIK.
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Yeah right. The current crop of variants is worse for younger people. The next crop is probably going to be even worse. There is selection pressure to more effectively infect untouched portions of the population.
SARS-1 had a double digit fatality rate regardless of age. SARS-2 is a close relative and almost certainly has the capacity to evolve back in that direction if given too much opportunity to do so.
Breeders (Score:2)
Yeah, lets test the virus in increasingly hostile immune systems to see how long it takes to get stronger...
Put the problem in perspective please (Score:5, Insightful)
7 out of 100,000 people in India died from COVID in the last 18 months.
180+ infants per 100,000 births die in the first 5 years of life due to the lack of medical resources
16+ people per 100,000 annually simply die due to a lack of water in India with an order of magnitude more dying from lack of all water-related issues (sanitation, cholera etc)
150+ people per 100,000 die from tuberculosis and 50+ die from malaria annually
When a disease that hits primarily people which are obese or over 65, a country with food shortages and an average life expectancy of 67 isn't really a prime target. Sure every death is a tragedy, but how will they roll out vaccines if they can't even get an MMR or polio vaccine to most of their children.
Re:Put the problem in perspective please (Score:4, Insightful)
7 out of 100,000 people in India died from COVID in the last 18 months.
Actually ~14 [worldometers.info] (though India would be an obvious candidate for a massive undercount). Though one need only look at the graph to realize that number is going to start growing very quickly.
180+ infants per 100,000 births die in the first 5 years of life due to the lack of medical resources
16+ people per 100,000 annually simply die due to a lack of water in India with an order of magnitude more dying from lack of all water-related issues (sanitation, cholera etc)
150+ people per 100,000 die from tuberculosis and 50+ die from malaria annually
Those are terrible statistics, but those lives are relatively expensive and complicated to save, at least relative to what we're willing to spend in foreign aid.
But saving lives with a vaccine? That's dirt cheap and damn easy by comparison.
When a disease that hits primarily people which are obese or over 65, a country with food shortages and an average life expectancy of 67 isn't really a prime target. Sure every death is a tragedy, but how will they roll out vaccines if they can't even get an MMR or polio vaccine to most of their children.
Hopefully those other vaccination campaigns get going after. But remember the case fatality rate (CFR) in a nation with a western health care system (that's gotten a lot better at treating COVID) vs a lot lower than the CFR in India. We're talking 100s of thousands of preventable deaths in the next year depending on how the situation in India progresses. I think that's worth taking action over.
Re:Put the problem in perspective please (Score:4, Insightful)
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India's per-capita is still under the Western countries, no?
All the corporate news is reporting is raw numbers on a billion-person problem.
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Oxygen situation is more complicated [nationalheraldindia.com] than that.
Re:Put the problem in perspective please (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah yes the autists take on the virus. Nevermind the hospitals running out of oxygen and other supplies, like that is no big deal. Or how it disrupts the food and manufacturing supply lines.
When in the hell did it become acceptable to use autism as an insult? You should be ashamed of yourself.
Re:Put the problem in perspective please (Score:5, Informative)
"Autist" as an insult (as opposed to "you must be autistic") seems to have emerged on 4chan about a decade ago, and went mainstream during the 2016 Trump campaign.
Fuck off with insulting the autistic (Score:2)
Ah yes the autists take on the virus.
Do you enjoy using the N-word among your friends too? What the fuck is wrong with you? You think you're a cool edgelord, but the rest of us think you're just a dick.
The fact you type such garbage shows you know nothing about autism. The original poster's view is not autistic...he's just an asshole. Autistic people have empathy, unlike you. We just have challenges with communication. I work with a lot of successful people on the spectrum and none of them would type something as shitty as you or the
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No, my point is that India has worse problems to concentrate on. If they haven't figured out polio in the last century, why would you expect them to figure out a brand new disease that requires a vaccine twice the monthly income of their average farmer.
What has turned out to be a welfare-disease and doesn't really affect India on a large scale shouldn't result in policies over there such as the proposed lockdowns that will primarily affect the lower castes.
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Numbers count (Score:3)
If you have a finite public safety budget, where should you spend it? On things that do a lot of good or things that do a minimal amount of good.
We care about Covid in India only because Covid is a problem in the west, and so we are thinking about it. We do not care at all about infant mortality in India because that is not our problem.
Within India, Covid is a problem because it can affect the rich and middle class. Whereas the other deaths are mainly of the poor.
Numbers do not count in media. A picture
India's lying about the dead (Score:5, Insightful)
"Sickness, sickness, sickness," Mr. Suresh said. "Thatâ(TM)s what we write." When asked why, he said it was what he had been instructed to do by his bosses, who did not respond to requests for comment.
The body count is so high and the deaths so unrelenting, crematoriums are burning bodies 24 hours a day. Crematoriums are so overloaded, they are having to expand wherever they can [theguardian.com].
In Delhi, photographs taken on Tuesday showed smoke billowing from dozens of pyres lit in a car park that had been turned into a makeshift crematorium. Elsewhere, workers built makeshift pyres on land outside crematoriums. "People are just dying, dying and dying," said Jitender Singh Shanty, who is coordinating more than 100 cremations per a day at the site in the east of the city. "If we get more bodies then we will cremate on the road. There is no more space here," he said, adding: "We had never thought that we would see such horrible scenes."
In one of the Southern states, the "official" count on April 23rd was 33 people dead from covid. However, between 80-100 people died at two hospitals [apnews.com] in the capital of Hyderabad.
Take whatever number the Indian government says with a block of salt. It's clear the numbers they are providing aren't close to reality.
umm no (Score:3, Insightful)
The only way that you're going to adequately respond to a global pandemic is by having a global response
The solution is hard borders - Australia and New Zealand petty much proved that.
While people with an agenda think its cute to say virus don't respect lines on a map, and while that is true they also do not teleport themselves from place to place, they need a carriers. Hard-Borders and sufficient quarantine procedures pretty much stop them and the break though events can be contained.
I am not against sending India PPE, vaccines, or whatever else at this point in the name of humanitarian aide - its the right thing to do. However it would not have been the right thing to do back when we were at the height of the crisis here. The governments of the world have a first responsibility to their own populations.
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While people with an agenda think its cute to say virus don't respect lines on a map, and while that is true they also do not teleport themselves from place to place, they need a carriers.
True, which is why we need to keep an eye on animals as a vector. They don't respect borders either.
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However it would not have been the right thing to do back when we were at the height of the crisis here. The governments of the world have a first responsibility to their own populations.
Unfortunately, highly religious societies, create highly religious governments, which in turn have a responsibility to a higher power.
Religion, is what often fails to recognize the reality of a horrible virus.
Re:umm no (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm in Canada and this is the strangest thing.
We've been in lockdown for over a year now with very brief periods of opening. Schools are currently closed. Stores are limited to curb side pickup..
Yet, it all this time the airport has been open. It literally boggles my mind.
I'm 'not allowed' to go across the city to see my nephew. But someone from Brazil, UK, South Africa, India... can fly into Canada.
The first thing you do is close down borders and isolate the virus.
Here's an oddity. They're being called the UK, Brazil, South African... variant for a reason. If the borders were closed, these variants wouldn't make their way over here.
This is nothing against immigration or anything like that. It's just basic science of disease transmission. It's like not recognizing that carbon dioxide emissions contribute to global warming. It just does and it works both ways. Closing the border between the UK and Canada protects both the UK and Canada from each other's variants.
I really find the half measures we do in countries like Canada to be just pathetic. Places like Sweden or Florida take a more lax stance and maybe have increased transmission, but they stayed open. Life went on.
Some places locked down hard with pretty authoritarian measures, like several Asian countries, like Taiwan. They've really managed to isolate and contain the virus... yes... by closing the border, contact tracing...
In Canada, we want to appear to be tough, but aren't actually willing to violate rights of people. So we end up with this weird ineffective mess where we have all these semi-authoritarian measures, but they're not really effective because the government doesn't want to enforce anything. They don't want to enforce the border. They don't want to enforce mandatory covid tracking on smartphones to make covid tracking easier.
Humans are bad at risk management (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's be clear: India failed India. Not long ago it was America failing America, so we know what that's like. It's really hard to get people to take threats seriously when they can't see them, hear them, or touch them, *especially* when numbers are going down.
Two months ago we were trying to figure out why India's numbers were so *low* [npr.org], so I suspect complacency had a lot to do with it. Hopefully this is an object lesson for everyone, not just India.
Wha? (Score:2)
India failed India.
What's with the focus in India? (Score:5, Informative)
Many countries are in similar duress. Is this an economic thing? An immigration thing (many Indians live in the US)?
To make a point, all these countries are in a worse position in terms of vaccines than India: Belize, Montenegro, Mauritius, Colombia, Australia, Jordan, Indonesia, Nepal, Lebanon, Suriname, Fiji, Kazakhstan, Bolivia, Bahamas, South Korea, Oman, Moldova, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Jamaica, Peru, São Tomé and Príncipe, Malaysia, Ecuador, Sri Lanka, Equatorial Guinea, Belarus, Eswatini, Tunisia, Ghana, Rwanda, North Macedonia, Laos, Japan, Senegal, Trinidad and Tobago, Togo, Myanmar, Botswana, Thailand, Philippines, Uzbekistan, Malawi, Angola, Kenya, Paraguay, Ukraine, Georgia, Djibouti, Guinea, Guatemala, Pakistan, Nicaragua, Gambia, Venezuela, Iran, Somalia, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Egypt, Afghanistan, Uganda, Honduras, Nigeria, Brunei, Namibia, South Africa, Ivory Coast, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Gabon, Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Sudan, Republic of the Congo, Mali, Timor-Leste, Mozambique, Algeria, Mauritania, Zambia, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Syria, Papua New Guinea, Libya, South Sudan, Niger, Cameroon
I mean, we should definitely help them, but we should help all of them.
See here for the data [nytimes.com]
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one reason is that India is a vaccine manufaciring hub, which has been supplying, even donating vaccines to 70+ countries
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/1... [cnbc.com]
https://news.un.org/en/story/2... [un.org]
https://m.businesstoday.in/sto... [businesstoday.in]
https://www.financialexpress.c... [financialexpress.com]
if the manufacturing hub cant export vaccines, multiple countries suffer.
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Nonsense (Score:2)
US deaths per 1mil: 1767
India deaths per 1mil: 147
Even if you think India is not fully counting COVID deaths by an entire order of magnitude, they STILL aren't dying as much as we are. The more Fauci talks, the less I think of him. But Biden or someone is probably still going to pin a medal on him for all of his 'work'.
Hindsight (Score:2)
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That India was infected by a virus the CCP tried to cover up. Jesus fucking christ. Fauci needs to retire. He loves the camera too much to be useful in his nominal government job.
No truer words have been spoken. Fauci is a quack. He has been wrong most of the time about this virus and some of recommendations now border on the pure nonsense. "You need to wear two or even three masks now?" An to make it worse his "option" changes with who is asking the question and which way the political winds are blowing. Why are we still listening to this man when there are more qualified experts out there whos advice makes sense?
Re: Of course it's our fault (Score:3, Insightful)
Stephen Hahn, Scott Gottlieb (with caveats), Marty Makary, whoever it is who runs the show in South Korea and Japan that managed to come to and act on the obvious conclusion that ping-ponging between "don't worry"/"take a cruise" and lockdown mania while mugging in front of any TV camera or social media influencer channel in sight was not going to engender trust or confidence.
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Those people are not infectious disease specialists. You picked their names solely because they disagree with Fauci.
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When literally thousands of people are disagreeing with him, have you ever thought "hummm, maybe he isn't as smart as you think he is?"
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How many people agree with him?
A quick google search, that you could have done yourself, shows almost nobody. One CNN poll shows that 60% of Americans do not trust or agree with him.
An this will be the last post that I'm going to bother with in this post. The overwhelming amount of evidence shows that Fauci was not the right man for the job. But if you want to continue to follow this quack and his idiotic rules, that is fine. The rest of us are going to live our lives.
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No, the way to be more qualified is to not obviously and conspicuously repeat something you've read in the newspaper a few days ago and have it treated as gospel and be fed back into the news cycle sausage factory.
In February '20, Fauci said don't worry. The media had been screaming "xenophobia" and "don't worry" for a month or so.
In March '20 he said don't wear a mask. The media had been shaming people for buying masks. 'Cause everyone with more than a grade school education *knows* masks don't protect you
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Almost as if his advice changed to reflect the new data that was learned about the virus...
Re: You're confusing epidemiology (Score:3)
The white lie was semitransparent from the start and nowhere near the biggest issue with the guy.
He let himself get played early by bending to say what the media were prodding him to say and he leaned into it when he saw it got him fawning magazine spreads, primo seats on opening day, and what I would generally classify as a taste of godhood that is incompatible with continuing to provide dispassionate scientific advice to the government and the public.
The white lie didn't need to be made. "Please conserve
Re: China/India share boarder (Score:2, Insightful)
If we're going to play this game, then it helps the US to actively help India while China does (according to appearances) nothing to assist. So, why complain about China?
Ideally, countries would help one another with no expectation of anything in return, other than good will. Really, there will be no other way to effectively counter future threats to the entire planet. I'm not suggesting it's a realistic possibility in the near future, but given how the world has responded to things like climate change and
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China has multiple times stated that they are waiting to assist. India so far has refused. China just recently had a conference with other S. Asian nations to assist with vaccines, etc. India decided not to attend, without even giving an excuse, despite being invited.
Re: China/India share boarder (Score:2)
Stop talking bollocks.
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For all those doubters this video [youtu.be] is for you.
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Hospitals are filled and turning away patients. If you can't see the strain it's having on the entire population then you're either a fool or a moron.
Re:Don't believe any of it (Score:5, Insightful)
India has a lot of other healthcare issues that have a higher mortality rate than COVID, so I would agree for India it might make sense to prioritize differently. For countries not facing those problems, 1% dead or long term injury is a bad thing. I suspect the long term health issues is much higher than 1% but we won't know for years. That's my personal concern, living with a chronic health issue rather than outright death.
As for the numbers, again. Take it all with a grain of salt. Some countries are over-reporting, some like India or China may be under-reporting. Don't worry about the exact counts for the moment, just the general trends. One issue with a modern pandemic is entitlement. Folks believe they're entitled to the same quality of services during a pandemic as during normal times and throw a tantrum when told "there's a lot we don't know, and we have to make the best guesses we can with what we got". There's a lot of unknowns, and folks will make incorrect choices because often there is no solid 'right' choice.
I'm thankful that the US at least made the correct bet on vaccines. "Fund every possible vaccine candidate, start manufacturing ramp up right now. We'll refine as we go." On one hand, it's inefficient as hell. On the other hand, it worked better than anyone had a right to expect. We and every other country did a lot of stuff both right and wrong. We won't know the final count for years to come.
Personally, I just try to see the COVID pandemic as a low fatality test run for the next actually serious pandemic that will hit someday. Tomorrow or a century from now, we'll have another Spanish Flu, Bubonic Plague or other mass-casualty event. I'd rather learn lessons off a 1-2% pathogen than a 5-20% pathogen. On the additional bonus side, hopefully we advance our vaccine tech, pandemic response plans, etc that likely will ultimately save more lives in the long run than COVID will end up taking. Rather than just get angry at folks for doing what they can, I recommend keeping an eye on the long term. Yes, authoritarian pandemic measures WILL be problematic to roll back. It's ok to be concerned about that. Like most things in life, the extremes on both ends tend to be an issue.
COVID-21 (Score:2)
Each new case is another chance to evolve into COVID-21 or COVID-22 which could be more deadly. At some point the changes will be enough they label it more than just a mutation.
Too many fools forget Polio. That vaccination infected a large number of people and today one has to wonder how many would get the shot given how harmless todays vaccination is. Yes, it's harmless because I can round off insignificant details; just as I do when I decide to drive or walk outside in the rain.
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If that is true then we should be helping the developing world industrialize faster as that's the primary way you drive down birth rates in a country.
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Also, the US still has a much higher infection and death rate from COVID-19 per-capita than India does. Who are WE to be giving COVID care advice to them?
Re:More Nonsense (Score:4, Informative)
The death rate in India is on a rapid downward tragectory.
Not really. Both cases [worldometers.info] and deaths [worldometers.info] are trending upwards over the last few weeks.