Posted on March 18, 2020
Some of us may feel like talking (venting?) about THE topic of the times, so here’s a thread.
Are we simply being cautious? Or are we panicking? (Translation: Are you typing out your response AFTER hand-sanitising?)
PS: Does anyone else feel like they are in a Hollywood sci-fi movie?
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Baradwaj Rangan 
brangan
March 18, 2020
Get Ready, A Bigger Disruption Is Coming
The Covid-19 pandemic reflects a systemic crisis akin to the seminal crashes of the 20th century.
https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/opinion/articles/2020-03-16/coronavirus-foreshadow-s-bigger-disruptions-in-future
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Sri Prabhuram
March 18, 2020
Yeah. I feel the same way. All the vibes from every post-apocalyptic film ever made.
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Rahini David
March 18, 2020
Rumour has it that we are in a Dean Koontz novel.
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Madan
March 18, 2020
BR: Brilliant article you have shared there. Yes, the exact and unfortunate implication is this very interconnected aspect of the world will come under question.
Riffing on the article now: I am not sure, however, that an alternative paradigm exists; what can be done instead is to slow down the reckless momentum in the direction of further integration (which was already happening before corona virus).
For example, the World Wars did not put the transportation and communication genie back in the bottle. If anything, war saw these technologies scale greater heights and in the post war era, these became more and more available to civilian consumers. For better or worse, the human race does not willingly go backwards in technology. It’s only when empires and civilizations crumble that the knowledge they uncovered get wiped out with them and other cultures may take longer to get to the corresponding stage. And this happened in the past without today’s technology that allows information sharing on a real time basis. It is difficult to see a similar wipeout happening today.
But then, we don’t know what we don’t know; that’s what history has taught us. As the article mentions, the idea that a globalised, rational society would give way to bloody fascism as well as a brutal communist revolution in Russia would have been unthinkable to the elite of the time. That this parallels shocked reactions to Brexit or Trump’s victories is, then, not surprising. There is a silver lining in how both Trump and Johnson have fumbled, in different ways, in their response to Coronavirus.
Coming to India, now, the worry is there is too little worry and a blind assumption that nothing will happen because our immune system is so strong and all. I would probably agree that we are more immune than Italians over the age of 70. But the response from China should be a warning to everyone who insists on underestimating or pooh-poohing Coronavirus. If you think a totalitarian and brutal state like China would impose a severe lockdown for something that wasn’t anything to worry about, you are quite deluded, sorry to say. You should ask yourself why would China resort to such steps and why have other countries, barring some of the East Asian countries like Korea and Taiwan, still been laggardly and slow in their response.
I buy some of the arguments in this video about the roots of the virus.
But the correct question to ask is why did a strong state like China favour a small but rich constituency and allow its entire supply chain to be jeopardized by a virus? NOT to resort to Sinophobia and pretend nothing will happen to you because you are more civilised and pious than them. This is the mistake Europe and USA made and may pay a heavy price for it. We in India should guard against them. We still have time and I am glad that, unexpectedly, the Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray has shown at least a semblance of urgency in tackling the issue and even contemplated shutting down Mumbai’s lifeline – the local train service. Because as long as trains keep running on their usual high frequency, getting people to abstain from non essential appointments will be impossible. Imposing IPC 188 and forcing offices to at least rotate staff was another necessary step. Not very timely but maybe we can still mitigate the impact this way.
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AdhithyaKR
March 18, 2020
My first impulse when I heard about the outbreak was to check whether Stephen King had anything to say because it seemed like the events of his book “The Stand” were coming true. Creepy, because Donald Trump’s election also mirrored parts of his book “The Dead Zone.”
Over the past few days, I’ve seen some absurd reactions to the virus like “Mother Nature is teaching us to spend more time with our family”, “This is because of the Rahu Dasha after last month’s lunar eclipse” and how “Our forefathers were brilliant enough to invent the Namaste because they knew such pandemics would occur in the future.” On one hand Nityananda is saying he’ll cure the world in 28 days, on the other hand there are “gaumutra parties” being organised.
I wish people just took this a little more seriously and practiced social distancing in a better way. Also hope that this is a wake up call so that we’re better prepared in the future. All the warning signs were there for this pandemic (SARS and MERS) but research in this area kind of tapered off, if experts are to be believed.
Unlike Tyler Durden though, we do have a Great War to talk about to the next generation if we get through this 🙂.
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Madan
March 18, 2020
“Creepy, because Donald Trump’s election also mirrored parts of his book “The Dead Zone.” – Yup, I read the book purely because I read about how the King character anticipated Trump. Though he may just as well have been talking about Huey Long or George Wallace. Populists are not new in USA. It’s just that every time they were thwarted, until Trump, that is. In the past, those like Wallace or Ross Perot (not a populist of the far right variety but with similar arguments on trade and manufacturing) only served to help a candidate of one of Democrat/Republican parties get elected. Trump running ON the Republican ticket, THAT was new. And it was here that the lemming like straight ticket voting so prevalent in USA hurt it badly and arguments about the competence of the man for the job rather than a narrow focus on policy positions were ignored.
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tonks
March 18, 2020
While we need to continue to practice social distancing and hand washing, I saw this report today as a ray of hope.
https://m.economictimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/india-still-in-phase-2-of-coronavirus-outbreak-confirms-icmr/articleshow/74673951.cms?utm_source=facebook_pwa&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialsharebuttons
ICMR’s 51 laboratories had tested random samples of individuals with acute respiratory illness from various intensive care units. “Of the total samples, the result of 500 were negative,” said Nivedita Gupta, epidemiologist at ICMR. “There have been no signs of community transmission,” he said, rejecting reports that India is not testing enough individuals.
However, if India moves on to Stage 3, then our health care system will be seriously overwhelmed considering our population size, and we may have a worse situation than Wuhan/ Italy. So we need to keep practicing “Constant Vigilance” as Mad Eye Moody once said.
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AK
March 18, 2020
I’m in Malaysia, and one among the many silent readers of this blog. About 4 weeks ago, Covid19 was just a sensational news something China and the other countries including our neighbour Singapore were battling. But today, Malaysian government had sealed off our borders, and imposed severe restrictions; all non essential business are odered to remain closed and even local travelling is heavily controlled. Things have been so chaotic in the past 2 days; at this we’re not in a lockdown stage yet. Why this happened is because 15000 delegates chose to ignore Covid19 and decided to gather for a religious event last week. Madness ensued when Covid19 positive case was detected in Brunei when one of the delegates arrived there. Only then the Malaysia government scrambled to track others and begged to voluntarily go through screening process (which most of them defied). Out of sudden, Covid19 positive numbers double overnight with 2 fatalities. Only then we realised how serious things are; hospitals are overcrowded, non-serious cases being deferred, marriages are are to be postponed, no gathering permitted, all schools closed etc etc and most of us are requested to work from home or forced to take take leave (paid or unpaid). We’re feeling the pain now! Please learn from our grave mistake.
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krishikari
March 19, 2020
Great question!Just a couple of night ago, sat and rewatched Contagion. I feel we are indeed inside this film, but now I could see how where this kind of film gets it a bit wrong, the detection of the origin of the virus doesn’t really matter actually. I mean it matters to science but not to living in this changed world. Some people I know seem even gleeful abput it, and just like a bad imitation of post apocalyptic films, the Americans react by stocking up on guns and toilet paper and the rest of us are carrying on without any panic. We are instead facing decisions like how to keep social distancing when your neighborhood kids come running over to help when you’re outside working trying to plant crops for the coming months when there may be no food in the shops.
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Heisenberg
March 19, 2020
Thanks for this thread. I’ve been really worried about India doing very little tests. In both Korea and Italy the big jump in cases started almost at the same time. What made the difference was that Korea tested so many people and was able to identify and isolate positive ones, before the healthcare system got overwhelmed.
Most people have mild symptoms and its only about 10-15% people who develop serious symptoms. Detecting cases and isolating them slows the community spread and in turn prevents overwhelming of the hospitals. Right now India is limited by the number of test kits available. With India’s population density and inadequate public healthcare system, it might become a great disaster if we don’t start testing widely.
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Ramit
March 19, 2020
“when you’re outside working trying to plant crops for the coming months”
Now I know why your name is krishi kari 😀
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krishikari
March 19, 2020
Ramit, yes actually doing krishi! I am coordinating a community garden and right now planting as many staples like potatoes and onions as we can. Usually we don’t have enough people to help us but now, when we don’t want people gathering, they are all coming because “working from home”. Trying to keep 3 meters distance between people. We are in the Netherlands and here many are being incredibly casual about all this when neighbouring countries are entering a lock down. Plus it’s not at all easy to get tested here.
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Enigma
March 19, 2020
I live in Sydney and panic has gripped the city, and rest of the country. People may have read about the shortages in supermarkets and the speed with which toilet rolls and other essentials are disappearing off the shelves. I have been trying to get hold of hand sanitizers for the past two months, they are almost impossible to find. Now children’s medicines are in hot demand, the government has put restrictions on the purchase of panadol. Scott Morrison announced closure of the borders earlier this evening, it is almost like the end of the world. I have started working from home, and with so many people doing that the telecommunications network will soon start feeling the strain. I am not sure if the world is over reacting or if the panic is justified. The economic impact of the virus is going to be far worse than the health ones. All of this because some numpties in China wanted to eat bats and pangolins.
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Madan
March 19, 2020
” I am not sure if the world is over reacting or if the panic is justified. ”
covid worldometer shows nearly 9300 deaths against 226000 cases. So the most conservative global fatality rate is over 4%.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
And in those 2.26 lakh cases are nearly 6900 cases in serious/critical status.
If we looked at only closed cases (95000), death rate is nearly 10%.
Swine flu had nowhere close to this fatality rate while ebola wasn’t close to as contagious. The speed with which a virus for which we have no vaccine yet has spread has caused panic and rightly so.
The right lesson to learn from this is instead to NOT cut funding for science and particularly medical science in the name of ‘capitalism’ and ‘balancing the budget’.
We could have had a vaccine for this. And THEN the current panic could be avoided. But one political party in the USA has made its platform all about gutting public expenditure at any cost. Such a doctrinaire conviction to this goal is bound to have consequences. The consequences are observed both in aforesaid underfunding as well as the emergence of a president who catered to irrational fears rather than offering a positive and development oriented platform.
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Venky Ramachandran
March 19, 2020
Three Lessons We are Discovering Together in the Times of Corona.
1) Work, since time immemorial, never felt at ease at our homes . Most of the times, work happened oblivious of home. And naturally, somebody had to pay the price for it. As we learn to figure work from home, we rediscover the trade-offs we once made: child and elder care, cooking etc and ask once again: Is my work worth the trade-off?
Once we come out of this phase, we are sure to discover deeper nuances about doing work which is far more integrated with home.
2) Belief-driven-Religion is in crisis. People are not looking for Gurus for answers and doing what best they know. Look around, most religions are co-opting the corona virus into their narrative to keep up with times. When we clearly see that no powers outside can influence what is happening in our lives and how we respond to it, a tremendous possibility opens up to move beyond belief and ask deeper questions of life and knowing.
3) What is an investment? When the markets going berserk and doomsayers out there predicting dark days ahead for the economy, now is a great time to re-look at investments and ask again: What is an investment? Does it always have to be a surrogate?
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Isai
March 19, 2020
“covid worldometer shows nearly 9300 deaths against 226000 cases. So the most conservative global fatality rate is over 4%…
If we looked at only closed cases (95000), death rate is nearly 10%.”
I feel, as of today, cases are being underreported since only the patients with the most visible symptoms visit hospitals. Even then, some don’t, like the Google techie’s wife.
So, the actual number of cases (226000 now) would be much higher.
W.r.t closed cases, the hospitals would/should triple check the recovered patients before discharging them. This means that they are not going to close the case in a hurry for recovered patients. So, the actual denominator (95000 now) would be much higher.
By the time this gets under control, I think the fatality rate will come down to well below 2%.
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Anu Warrier
March 20, 2020
Madan, in the US, that one party has blood on its hands. They not only screwed up the initial response time, but very cravenly insisted – for nearly a month – that it was a political hoax, ‘fake news’, made-up hysteria, panic… They encouraged their base to ‘go out to bars and restaurants’ defying the CDC’s recommendations for social distancing. Insisted that this was all a ploy to impeach their Dear Leader.
Cut to now – Dear Leader claims he knew this was a pandemic before anyone called it a pandemic. (If so, his actions [or lack thereof] since are criminal and he should be prosecuted.) He’s blaming everyone else for its spread. And we are all under virtual lockdown.
Can’t travel home right now; so stay here and bite my fingernails to the bone… I can work from home though, but I pity the daily wage workers who are either losing their wages or having to risk getting sick with an illness for which there’s no cure.
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Enigma
March 20, 2020
@Madan, I agree with what you are saying but the communication coming out of government sources is quite confusing. The Chief Medical Officer (of Australia) recently advised that this was a mild infection and people need not panic. I read similar statements from other across the world. However, the entire world is going into a lock down. There are many such confusing claims and counter-claims floating around. Of course, they are trying to ensure that people do not panic, but their statements are having the opposite effect.
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abishekspeare
March 20, 2020
Dear BR
Now would be a great time to catch up with movies you couldn’t review recently that are available on streaming platforms. Like kesari, panipat, and tanhaji(on prime, Netflix and hotstar respectively). The readers are also sitting vetti in their homes. If not a review, at least a thread or a bitty rumination would do 😦
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Heisenberg
March 20, 2020
@Enigma – The panic and awareness this virus is generating is very much justified. Yes over 80% of the cases have mild symptoms just like normal flu. The panic is because we don’t know how many are going to be infected and what rate. Are 100,000 people going to get infected in a week or in 2 months. That will make a huge difference as the world wasn’t prepared for a pandemic situation and doesn’t have good system in place.
Some people with underlying conditions (particularly older people), are more susceptible to the disease, but it’s not a very significant number of people. Out of over 10,000 deaths that have occurred so far, many could have been saved had the infection rate been slow. In other words it’s not the virus or disease itself that kills. It’s the lack of access to proper facility due to an overwhelming demand.
And please do not say this virus outbreak is because of Chinese eating bats. Precise origin of this virus is still not conclusive and it’s just suspected to have originated from Bats (Usual Suspects). Of course the Chinese eat some exotic wild meats that are unthinkable for us, but this is a humanitarian crisis and it’s not a good time to blame a whole race for the outbreak. If not this one, it could have happened from anywhere any day.
The world simply wasn’t ready and now is the time to be responsible and develop a better system for future outbreaks.
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Jai
March 20, 2020
@Heisenberg- Good points, but I would like to disagree with you on China. I agree that one shouldn’t turn this into a blame game tarring one particular nation, but IMO, there definitely needs to be a “cause-effect analysis” kind of probing into Chinese dietary habits that has–not for the first time– given rise to a pandemic.
Let me give you a slightly different example. During the disastrous Kerala floods of a couple years back, attention was drawn to the fact that had the ecological measures for the Western ghats suggested by 2 different committees (Gadgil committee and Kasturirangan commitee) been adhered to, the floods would not have reached such catastrophic proportions. But then, repeatedly, attention was deflected stating, pretty much, that priority was to be given for relief work and then was not the time to spend on analysing mistakes.
But guess what? Mere months after the flood waters receded, it was back to plundering the Ghats as usual. Mining and sand quarrying permits have been granted– in the same hill areas where such depradation had caused flash floods!!
Now during this pandemic, again there seems to be a unnecessary wariness about calling a spade a spade. The intent should not be to demonise the Chinese people as a whole. But for years, decades in fact, it is a fact that their ill considered demand for the illegal Wildlife trade has a) resulted in zoonotic infections from “wet markets” and b) resulting in catastrophic declines in biodiversity. This stubborn refusal by the Chinese to curb such demand has brought so many species– pangolins, tigers, rhinos and others– to the brink of extinction. And now it seems they are unwittingly killing off people too, as a side effect.
IMO, too much political correctness at this point is counterproductive. Don’t demonize, I agree. But call out failings. Else — just as Kerala is near certain to face another massive monsoonal flood in the next decade, perhaps sooner; we are sure to have yet another viral pandemic from China. They need to change their dietary craving for endangered wild animals. It’s really not so difficult!
For more on just how ill considered the Chinese response was initially – https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/covid19-made-in-china-pandemic-63531/?amp
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vijay
March 21, 2020
“Of course the Chinese eat some exotic wild meats that are unthinkable for us, but this is a humanitarian crisis and it’s not a good time to blame a whole race for the outbreak.”
Maybe but this is not the first time the Chinese are doing this to the rest of the world either. They are not going to stay away from snakes and bats but at the very least they could have not lived in denial for the first 2 months having been through something like this before.
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vijay
March 21, 2020
Reg feeling like being in a sci-fi or medical thriller, check out or revisit Outbreak or Contagion while you are stuck at home trying to kill time
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Enigma
March 21, 2020
@Heisenberg, I am not blaming the entire Chinese race but the disgusting Chinese Communist Party is to be blamed completely. I hope you have not swallowed the disgusting propaganda of the Chinese commie bastards. They have blood on their hands.
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Tommy
March 21, 2020
If anyone is to be blamed, it is the Chinese government. It tried to suppress the news of the virus spread fearing economic slowdown and ignored the cries of health professionals and even persecuted the whistleblowers. By the time they came around to reality, the genie was out of the bottle. One of the comments that made the round on the internet during the news of a global outbreak was, “Even our deaths are made in China”. It is not racist to criticize the Chinese government for its moral failure. Even those who are criticizing the people for their weird food habits are doing so out of genuine fear and anger. Xenophobia, racism, or Trump calling it the Chinese virus shouldn’t be the issues discussed now.
Anyways, I recommend Chernobyl, the HBO series which portrays how another communist regime tried to suppress the impact of a massive nuclear explosion and how few brave scientists and working-class men defied the bureaucracy and risked their lives to minimize the impact. It’s a good show.
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tonks
March 21, 2020
3 weddings and a funeral
https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/keralas-covid-19-nightmare-patient-attended-3-weddings-cradle-ceremony-and-more-120802
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Heisenberg
March 21, 2020
@Jai @Enigma
Ofcourse I am not supporting or buying anything the chinese government says. I have zero respect for a govt which stifles its own people in everyway possible and only worries about losing its control.
What I meant was, an outbreak like this could have originated from anywhere and might have had similar or worse impact. It could have been swine flu or ebola or zika or mers coV. Because this particular outbreak has become such large scale we are all talking about this and pass some blame on chinese.
They have had this habit of eating wild animals and if I am not wrong, it only became very widespread post 2000. I myself was in China last august and saw a supermarket which had a section like aquarium – turtles, fishes and 1 small crocodile all alive and to be sold for consumption. This outbreak could possibly have originated from this practice (not confirmed yet). And its not like the chinese ppl were aware of this risk or didn’t care. At least now they have woken up and banned the trade.
All I am saying is the world always had this inherent risk of a pandemic outbreak with or without this wildlife consumption and we were simply not ready.
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Srini
March 22, 2020
et another reader from the US. Anu/Madan pretty much covered what I think most of us feel here in virtual lockdown, esp with the schools closed as well and kids and work colliding. I dont think normalcy would return anytime soon but hopefully it gets better from here on.
One of the best articles I read reg this pandemic, response options and a whole lot more is on Medium. Linking it here in case anyone feels like reading it – https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56
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Sutheesh Kumar
March 22, 2020
Hi Dr. Aparna,
How is the situation in Thrissur and how are you and your hospital handling it?
Stay safe.
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Rahini David
March 22, 2020
If it had originated from India, other countries would be discussing the way we wash our bottoms whether or not the accusation was justified.
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Sutheesh Kumar
March 22, 2020
Among all the clutter and general panic I felt this was the most sensible one.
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ThouShaltNot
March 23, 2020
For those in U.S., there is some hopeful news in the form of 2 anti-viral drugs that are now being repurposed : hydroxychloroquine (an anti-malarial) and remdesivir (treatment for Ebola). Although neither is FDA-approved for treating Covid-19 yet, in anecdotal studies (some outside the U.S.), they have shown promise and are being fast-tracked for larger clinical trials here.
Also, for the medium and long term, there are different approaches afoot to find a cure:
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sreeramgopinath
March 23, 2020
Thanks for this thread brangan, am at Berkeley right now, it’s become a ghost town. Most of the students have left for homes and the university has moved all the classes online. Sheer resistance here, shutting down everything from cafes to 3-D printers, space-talks and selfdriving expos cancelled all over the Silicon Valley, the whole semester stunned into a limbo, grades, exams all stranded, heeding to an existential toll.
Never have I seen humanity so scared, so vulnerable. First time I’m feeling a sense of helplessness (as Carl S said) about what we can do, all the best minds and resources to no avail (yet).But in a way this has united us all, for probably the first time we are fighting something as one force, an unfortunate break from fighting amongst ourselves.
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Madan
March 23, 2020
Dire predictions of an apocalyptic, unpresidented recession have already been issued.
https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/7-financial-heavyweights-have-unveiled-forecasts-for-a-sudden-us-recession-heres-what-they-had-to-say-about-the-economic-damage-coronavirus-will-cause-/articleshow/74748679.cms
A 20% dip, even for a lone quarter, would be catastrophic. A disease has brought us down to our knees in a way that even the 2008 financial crisis couldn’t.
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Jai
March 23, 2020
@ Rahini, wrt “If it had originated from India, other countries would be discussing the way we wash our bottoms whether or not the accusation was justified.”- Sure, there are misguided people everywhere who would use any opportunity to bash. Even today, there are some amongst us who have been found taunting fellow citizens from North East India, calling them “Corona” or “Chinky”. This kind of behaviour is condemnable for sure.
BUT, there is a difference between such irresponsible xenophobia and using this opportunity to actually enforce some very long overdue changes. This is not the first time that Chinese proclivities for meat sourced from wild animals has led to an outbreak. The SARS outbreak of 2002 was again traced back to the so called ‘wet markets’. For a totalitarian, one party dictatorship like China, are we seriously even trying to assume that 18 years was not enough time to outlaw this practice? CITES and numerous other international organisations have been trying in vain to make China enforce laws against endangered animal trafficking. These pleas have fallen on deaf ears, with China using their economic clout to ignore, and even worse, actively thumb their noses at international endeavours. So for them to now crib that others are pointing fingers at their consumption patterns- sorry, it doesn’t really wash. They need to make changes. Pronto. It’s already almost 2 decades overdue.
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Aravindan R
March 23, 2020
My post about efficiency improvement in covid-19 testing. Sharing this for the people who may be interested in algorithms!
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tonks
March 23, 2020
Sutheesh Kumar : I have never been so scared any time before, in my entire life. Though we have only one active case in our district presently, the worry is that we may be underestimating the count, because of restrictions on tests. It is likely that community transmission is silently smouldering to suddenly explode.There are not enough Personal protection equipment, N95 masks, or ICU beds to handle that, and medical personnel are a high risk group with (due to unknown reasons) more severe disease, and deaths.
I can understand the mental status of people who have been called to war. How I wish I was in a profession where the only duty asked of me would have been to stay at home, and distance myself.
This is an intelligent take on government policies :
This is where you can see the massive impact of policies like those of Singapore or South Korea:
If people are massively tested, they can be identified even before they have symptoms. Quarantined, they can’t spread anything.
If people are trained to identify their symptoms earlier, they reduce the number of days in blue, and hence their overall contagiousness
If people are isolated as soon as they have symptoms, the contagions from the orange phase disappear.
If people are educated about personal distance, mask-wearing, washing hands or disinfecting spaces, they spread less virus throughout the entire period
View at Medium.com
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Anu Warrier
March 23, 2020
Tonks, stay safe. 😦 Keeping my fingers crossed for all of you who are in the forefront of fighting this invisible disease.
(My brother, SIL, her sisters and their husbands are all doctors and it’s a scary time.)
the worry is that we may be underestimating the count, because of restrictions on tests.
Well, it appears India is already in Phase 3. From one of India’s leading epidemiologists:
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Kay
March 24, 2020
Stay safe, Tonks. It infuriates me when people blindly clap (including my mum who is a doctor) but don’t raise their voices to give enough protective gear to the healthcare professionals and other emergency workers. Not a word from the government on what their plan is. This is giving me panic attacks. I have been trying to put on a brave face for the sake of my kids and elderly mum, but inside I’m a terrified, anxious mess. Everyday when I step out it scares the living daylights out of me. I can only imagine how it must be for you being in the middle of everything. Much love and respect to you.
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Arjun
March 24, 2020
@Anu Warrier: a) This person Ramanan Laxminarayanan is no epidemiologist. He has a Ph.D in economics. b) He lives and works in US, so certainly not one of India’s leading epidemiologists. c) He is the director of a medical diagnostics company. In summary, a typical NRI quack with a dubious model who is looking to exploit this crisis to make a quick buck. I’d trust ICMR and Dr. Vijaybhaskar over this guy anyday.
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brangan
March 24, 2020
Arjun: Ramanan is a friend. He is based in Delhi. And he DOES do a lot of work in this field.
He is an economist AND epidemiologist by training.
https://globalhealth.washington.edu/faculty/ramanan-laxminarayan
https://www.theigc.org/person/ramanan-laxminarayan/
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Sutheesh Kumar
March 24, 2020
Dr. Aparna,
My earlier reply to you didn’t make it to the comment section.
I completely relate to how you’re feeling now and my heart goes out to you, other Doctors and Medicare professionals who find themselves in a similar situation. What is heartening is that there are only 3 recorded cases in Thrissur as of today and the 3 infected earlier recovered well. So that should be reason enough to be hopeful that the situation will not get out hand in Thrissur atleast.
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Arjun
March 24, 2020
BR: I stand corrected then… if you can vouch for his credentials, although his Linkedin shows an engineering degree and PhD in economics (so was not sure where the medical training comes in). Anyway, But he is going to be splurged all over TV channels, he must also reveal a clear conflict of interest- that he is a director of Healthcube, a medical diagnostics company.
He says 300-500 million people WILL get infected by July in India, there will be an avalanche of cases, leading to 1-2 million deaths and that we have already missed the bus on testing and are already in phase 3. This is dangerous, unsubstantiated fearmongering in a country like India. Now I ask, what are the consequences for people like him if none of this comes to pass? There seems to be no accountability for some people.
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Devarsi Ghosh
March 24, 2020
Since I’ve been working from home for 2.5 years now, and much of my free time is spent reading books and watching films, the isolation isn’t affecting me much. I feel a bit genuinely sorry but also amused at seeing people behaving like they are losing their minds after seven days of isolation.
To them, I want to say, please know: a vaccine isn’t happening anytime soon, projected casualties due to Covid-19 in India alone could be up to a million in a few months acc. to certain reports, common sense says the markets and food production may slowly shut down beyond a point, there is only so much food the State can provide in rations, and I personally have no faith in the State, and that has not much to do with which party is in power.
Although it may sound alarmist or cinematic, but this is an alarming and cinematic situation, I want to go ahead and say that it’s most rational to carry on with life right now with a practical, survivalist attitude, taking the worst case scenario into account. Plan the next few months ahead knowing that this is the new normal.
I am not spreading “panic” here. Hysteric personality types will anyway be panicked at anything and everything. What I’m saying is we have to get real right now. The country is in lockdown, and perhaps will remain so in the unforeseeable future, and if that continues, humans will devolve into animals. You do not need to watch Contagion for that. Read history. So buckle up.
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Devarsi Ghosh
March 24, 2020
If we want to think on the lines of what message is nature giving to us, then it’s simply: do not fuck with nature. Epidemiologists don’t think in terms of IF an outbreak will happen, but when it will happen. In the last 50 years, the kind of viruses that have jumped species, mutated, and entered human society (HIV, SARS, Nipah, SIV, Ebola, SARS COV 2) is simply a result of unchecked capitalism screwing with nature.
So that’s the message nature is giving. But once this is over, will the world behave itself upon getting the memo? I don’t think so.
I think the oligarchs and the State will consolidate its power in far more authoritarian ways — but expect much more to be nationalised, but that can swing either way as history have showed us. Expect more sympathy for Right-wing authoritarian, protectionist governments. Expect more nativism.
The income and resource distribution gap will increase further, expect more xenophobia and attacks on migrants, minorities, and their lifestyles, expect the dissolution of office spaces, and through that, the dissolution of social relations and camaraderie.
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brangan
March 24, 2020
Arjun: My objection was to you calling a very qualified person a “quack”.
I have not been following the issue about numbers that you mention. But sometimes, experts are called upon to give predictions and/or opinions. This seems to be one of those cases.
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brangan
March 24, 2020
Devarsi Ghosh: Since I’ve been working from home for 2.5 years now…
Haha. Same here. I work a lot from home, or else am in theatres, etc. And since ours is a profession that can be done from anywhere, work is going on at full speed. In fact we are busier than ever, trying to think up new pieces in the absence of releases.
So whenever I see people saying things like “I feel like climbing walls” etc., I’m like, “WHAT!” 😀
tonks: I have never been so scared any time before, in my entire life.
The incredible work that you guys do is what gives the rest of us hope. Wishing you strength and sending positive vibes your way!
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Anu Warrier
March 24, 2020
@Arjun, BR has already answered you regarding Ramanan’s credentials. As for the predictive nature of his message, it’s not fear-mongering, but a reality check. The Imperial College, London report on Covid-19 has predicted 2.2 million deaths in the US alone unless we act now. (And even so, they are predicting 1.1 million deaths in the US.) Are they fear mongering? No. These are people tracking the spread of the disease, the nature of its spread, and the speed at which the virus seems to be cloning itself.
A couple of days ago, 520 people died in France, the second largest casualty in a European country (the highest was in Italy, I believe). In a country like India, with nearly 1.4 (?) billion, do you think that 200 to 300 million is a fear-mongering figure?
India has missed the bus on testing, but that’s not due to lack of preparedness as much as it is lack of the necessary medical infrastructure as much as the ignorance/irresponsibility of the people. Unlike in the US, where the administration had more than three months to prepare, but sat on their hands because ‘hoax’.
Honestly, I thought his response – Do not panic; here are the next steps; act responsibly; containment, etc., – was very, very rational. Not at all fearmongering. YMMV.
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brangan
March 24, 2020
21 days!
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Amit Joki
March 24, 2020
I saw Contagion a few days back and while it wasn’t as effective as Virus (Malayalam), the plot was eerily close to what’s happening now.
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Arjun
March 25, 2020
Sheer madness to shut down the country for 3 whole weeks, with only 500 cases, 10 deaths and a slowing infection rate. In India over 2 lakh people die from TB every year. Where are the responses to THAT? The economy is flushed, period.
@Anu: Going by the current rate of infections and death, the Imperial report also belongs in the dustbin. Mathematical models for highly non-linear processes with many parameters whose effects are unknown (in this case, weather, latitude, natural social distancing, possibility of virus mutations and many more) are good for writing academic papers, but pretty much useless IRL. When used for guiding govt policy, will pretty much end in disaster.
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Arjun
March 25, 2020
@Anu: Also, here’s the latest fashionable epidemiological model, this time from Oxford
https://www.ft.com/content/5ff6469a-6dd8-11ea-89df-41bea055720b
Predicts that half of UK may already be infected. Lol. Basically saying that Wuhan virus is a lolipop compared to the flu even. That’s the thing with non-linear dynamics. You can tweak one or two parameters in your model and radically change the “fixed point” that you land on. FWIW, I think this model is about as useful or reliable as the Ramanan estimate.
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brangan
March 25, 2020
Arjun: I really don’t get this utter dismissal — and this is not because I know Ramanan.
The work of any expert in any field will probably involve predictive models that may have nothing to do with “real life”. As newer and stranger variables appear, these are going to be built into these models in order to prepare for the worst case.
Are you saying this exercise is utterly worthless simply because this “worst case” MAY not come true?
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Enigma
March 25, 2020
The Indian government has done well to go in for a complete lock-down now to control the infection rather than wait for matters to escalate and go the Iran/Italy way. Commies will criticize this action but they should not be taken seriously as they are just useful idiots of China and will say whatever their master orders them to.
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Enigma
March 25, 2020
Brangan, no point in arguing with commies. They are simply carrying out the orders passed by their chinky masters.
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AK
March 25, 2020
@Arjun.. I’m sure you’re from another planet. Early lockdown is the best option for now for earthlings like us, whoa re still grappling with this new virus.
If you still have no idea why Covid19 is more serious than another diseases, it is because we are dealing with a new virus which we still have no complete knowledge of; thus the treatment is draining our medical facilities, and preventing normal essential treatments which we have already know how to deal with like TB, flu etc
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Enna koduka sir pera
March 25, 2020
Tonks – thank you so much for doctors and healthcare workers like you for being in the frontlines. Wish you all strength and safety! I am involved in CovID testing in NY and it is really at this time that I wish I was back in India to aid with the testing efforts there. How is the actual testing capacity in India right now?
I shudder to think of the economic consequences for the marginalized/economically weak/informal labor sectors. Going on this 21 day lockdown without a 3-4 day notice is incredibly irresponsible on the part of the govt. When epidemiologists were already predicting community transmission, they should have warned people beforehand about potential lockdown, so that they all could have prepared for it. Thinking of migrant laborers from other states and rural areas – they may have been able to go back to their families and not be forced to live in squalid/crowded rooms for this period, if only there was a notice and assurance from the govt of the welfare schemes for this period.
@Arjun – one can debate the consequences of shutting down the entire country in terms of number of deaths caused by the economics of shutdown vs number of deaths from the disease. But, one cannot deny the fact that we need to consider this very very seriously. The difference between TB and this is that TB doesn’t have a doubling infection rate of 3 days and therefore doesn’t overwhelm the healthcare system at once. 1000s of people will not be expected to get sick at the same time and leave the hospitals overwhelmed.
And this is not an irrational/unfounded prediction. We have been seeing it happening before our eyes in other countries and very well know now what the pattern is. Why would you expect it to behave any differently in India, without prior evidence? Isn’t it dangerous to presume that? Wuhan was shut down when they had 400 cases.. Agreed India, being bigger in size than Wuhan, has ~500 cases now. But consider the density of the population, the poverty rate, the quality and accessibility of healthcare system and you will realize that if it gets worse than this, then there is no stopping the bulldozer.
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Devarsi Ghosh
March 25, 2020
/ Will this virus stick around and become endemic?
This is not yet clear, but I believe it will, indeed, become endemic. We should expect that the majority of the people globally will get exposed in the next year or two. A vaccine is the best hope for now — say, in 18 months. And importantly, Indian vaccine companies can get to manufacture it — decentralise the manufacture to avoid global bottlenecks. Even then, the virus is likely to be around. /
Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/coronavirus-lockdown-india-europe-covid-19-6330225/
(Interview with an infectious disease epidemiologist who worked for 18 years with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Since 2019, he has been Director of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium.)
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Madan
March 25, 2020
Arjun: For a moment, keep aside the predictions of those whom you call NRI quacks, regardless of whether they are that indeed. Dr Devi Shetty himself has predicted at least 80000 cases in Karnataka alone. If even 10% of them turn critical, that means we have to look for 8000 critical care beds in one state (don’t even dare think of the scenario in UP). Do you think that is a piece of cake?
The PM himself cited the overload on healthcare even in advanced nations in his speech yesterday. He certainly doesn’t want a repeat of that scenario in India. It’s not about how many will die. It’s about the disastrous healthcare situation that will ensue if steps are not taken to contain the virus. The lockdown has been strategically imposed at exactly that juncture when the virus has been seen to affect an exponentially increasing number of people in other countries who are deeper in the throes of dealing with covid than India.
I am no admirer of Modi and I will continue to call out demonetisation as a sheer catastrophe of stupidity but this time, the science is on his side. India cannot do what Korea did to tackle the virus, which would have been the most effective way to bring it to heel. Short of that, a lockdown to kill the spread of the virus is the only way.
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Arjun
March 25, 2020
@Madan and others: There is perhaps an objective way to judge if this 21 day lockdown is worth it, or a typical Modiesque conjob of the order Demonetization^2, although this time done on the fearmongering of “experts” like Ramanan. Pakistan has twice the cases as India at this point and IK has ruled out a country wide shutdown. Similar climate, same genes etc. Let’s check back here on April 15 to see where we stand wrt them.
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Madan
March 25, 2020
“There is perhaps an objective way to judge if this 21 day lockdown is worth it” – There won’t be except for countries like US (where Trump has equated America’s greatest nation status with opening soon for business again) or UK (which bet on herd immunity) and seeing if things do go awry there as is widely predicted. I for one do think it will, with the callous lack of social distancing as seen from large gatherings at Alki Beach, forget a lockdown or curfew. Can India afford that risk with its large population? No, I don’t think so. So, yes, we can check back after 21 days but to see if things have indeed gone pear shaped in the US and decide whether India could have followed that course.
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Madan
March 25, 2020
I omitted to say why I don’t think there would be an objective way to judge it. Because if the lockdown works in bringing down transmission, the naysayers are simply going to use that to argue it was never worth it. So yes, the countries that have thrown caution to the wind offer the best counter-example. If their bet fails, it means India’s bet was worth it.
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Enigma
March 25, 2020
Pakistan’s paid lapdogs are hiding the fact that it is under lockdown.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/pakistan-stays-under-lockdown-amid-coronavirus-outbreak/1777394
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ThouShaltNot
March 25, 2020
Dr. Ian Lipkin (medical consultant on Contagion and a virus hunter) has now been diagnosed with Covid-19:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2020/03/24/contagion-medical-adviser-dr-ian-lipkin-has-coronavirus/5076231002/
A relatively recent interview with the doctor on the Covid-19 pandemic:
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Anu Warrier
March 25, 2020
Arjun, I’m not a great fan of Modi myself, but I think, in this case, he’s done what others are doing / should have done, and doing it quicker. As Enigma points out, TB doesn’t spread this fast. And the problem with the Covid-19 is that it can clone itself and move on before the person even shows a single symptom. In a county like India, with its population density, you are sitting on the top of a ticking time bomb.
Predictive analysis looks at prior patterns to predict outcomes in similar/dissimilar demographics. That doesn’t make it bunkum.
And honestly, I wouldn’t be following Pakistan’s lead in anything.
@Enigma – my friend’s daughter is a nurse in Upstate NY. She was talking about the lack of protective gear for health workers. 😦
Stay safe.
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tonks
March 25, 2020
I am involved in CovID testing in NY and it is really at this time that I wish I was back in India to aid with the testing efforts there. How is the actual testing capacity in India right now?
Enna koduka sir pera : The reason why the number of about 600 positive cases maybe a huge underestimation is that we had been restricting testing to those who had symptoms and came from overseas (broadened a little now to also include testing for all pneumonias admitted, and symptoms in health care workers). This was because the only validated kit we had then was German, with limited numbers available. It is costly and takes days for the results to come.
There is a new Indian kit now available which gives quicker results and is much cheaper :
https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.businesstoday.in/lite/story/first-made-in-india-covid-19-test-kit-by-mylab-gets-commercial-approval/1/399007.html
Another big problem for us is that taking swabs from the nose and the throat for testing, requires the use of full Personal protection equipment by the physician, and those suits are in short supply, so we can’t use them up by broadening testing for all overseas passengers. The problem with limited testing is that asymptomatic carriers maybe roaming around with underestimation of community spread.
If we had had enough kits right from the beginning, if they had been cheap, available in plenty, and testing had been easy, and quick, then we could have tested every suspect. And quarantined asymptomatics (especially the 20-30 year olds who travel a lot, but often do not have any symptoms positives) and maybe even prevented the lockdown. Like S Korea did :
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1167376
While I agree wholeheartedly with most of what the epidemiologist in the video said (there is no evidence as yet that our summer heat and humidity will reduce community spread, though one can always hope), and of course we need the lockdown to prevent the nightmares happening in other countries, and to buy time to become better equipped, the lockdown will certainly be cruel on the poorest. It breaks one’s heart to read stories like this :
https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/migrant-workers-in-delhi-facing-tough-times-due-to-lockdown-120032501095_1.html
It seems a paradox and a tragedy that a disease brought into our country by the rich will affect the poor most, one brought here by the relatively young and healthy, will take its toll most on the old and the unhealthy.
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Arjun
March 25, 2020
There’s strong empirical evidence that temperature and humidity do retard the Ro and hence the efficiency of community spread, particularly in the tropics. There are also studies on this
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.05.20031872v1
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3550308
But of course professional fearmongers need their consultancy services and pharma industries their profits, so they will deliberately downplay these factors. So far, Bolsanaro of Brazil, Mexican govt and Imran Khan are dealing with this crisis in a far more rational manner rather than simply copying European style shutdowns without regard for local variables like the deranged Modi.
Again, let’s check back on April 15 to see whether Brazil and Mexico are realy doing much worse than we are at that point.
In India, the number of poor, sick people who will die from other causes because of lack of access to transport, the small companies and businesses that can’t survive a 3 week closure, the increase in number of suicides as a result…all of these will eclipse any supposed benefits from this sledgehammer approach.
@Enigma: I did not say that partial, targeted lockdowns don’t work. That is the approach Pakistan is taking. A nationwide full lockdown of 1.3 B people for 3 whole weeks is deranged
And oh, btw, now researchers from Stanford raise doubts about the real mortality rates of this disease and estimate that it is probably 0.06 (flu is 0.1) for context. If this is true, the joke’s on all of us. The wsj article is behind a paywall, so here the summary – https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/is-the-coronavirus-as-deadly-as-they-say-professors-claim-more-data-needed-to-know-mortality-rate
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Isai
March 25, 2020
“https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/migrant-workers-in-delhi-facing-tough-times-due-to-lockdown-120032501095_1.html”
The above article doesn’t mention the Delhi locality or the native towns of the migrants. It doesn’t even mention their full names and the 2 people mentioned in the article have very common names. Further, it is a syndicated feed from ANI that has been published in multiple leading news portals, but the name of the reporting journalist is not mentioned, even in ANI’s website.
While I do fear that there would be some people in the same predicament as mentioned in the article, what intrigues me is that even I can write a similar article, while sitting at home, by changing the location from Delhi to Chennai and replacing the names in the article with say Esakki Pandi from Tirunelveli and Lokesh from Vellore. I wonder about the influence which these news outlets seem to have in shaping our perceptions.
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Enigma
March 26, 2020
@ Anu Warrier, according to the Deputy Chief Medical Officer of Australia, Paul Kelly, the infectiousness of the virus was such that one sick person could lead to 400 more contracting the disease within a month if they didn’t stick to distancing and quarantine measures. As you rightly say, this is the reason why countries across the globe are imposing strict lock-down measures.
Here too, there is a shortage of protective equipment medical workers. Also, worryingly, a shortage of ventilators. A friend works in the hospital which is the centre for COVID 19 testing in the state of New South Wales. He mentions that there is just one ventilator for every 8 beds here in Oz. I hope people take the quarantine and isolation rules seriously.
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Heisenberg
March 26, 2020
While lockdown is very important and helps to slowdown the community transition, that alone will not help in flattening the curve. Let’s say now we have about 10,000 active cases (very small number for India) that are not detected. A lockdown of 21 days will buy us time from getting in contact with these 10,000 cases. But it’s not like at the end of 21 days they are going to be virus free. Even if 90% is virus free and say 1000 are active carriers, again it has the same risk of community spread because we had not identified these 1000.
So a lockdown of 1.3 billion people without widespread testing is like demonetization of 86% currency to find fake notes or black money. This has a huge economic cost and at the end of 21 days if we are still going to have pandemic situation with overwhelmed healthcare, that will be a great disaster.
That being said, this 21 days could buy us time to prepare enough test kits, PPE, make a strategic plan for efficient quarantining, contact tracing. At the end of 21 days if India doesn’t start mass testing we will be doomed.
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Enigma
March 26, 2020
@ Arjun, Pakistan does not seem to have been rational or smart in dealing with this crisis. You might want to check this link:
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium-how-pakistan-became-a-coronavirus-super-spreader-to-the-muslim-world-1.8708783
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Madan
March 26, 2020
@Heisenberg: Today’s news said India is in fact acquiring rapid testing kits from Korea/US. No idea what the timeline is but the idea would be to get them in place by the time the lockdown period ends. Whether the number of kits will be enough, whether anything will be enough with our population is anybody’s guess.
“Even if 90% is virus free and say 1000 are active carriers, again it has the same risk of community spread because we had not identified these 1000.” – With respect, the risk would not be the same vis a vis doing nothing in these three weeks because with our population, we would be talking about a scenario where a few hundred million get infected instead of thousands.
Arjun pooh poohed the number of 200-300 million as fear mongering by quackery but Dr SP Kalantri of Kasturba Hospital, Sevagram himself mentions this figure to Vox.
https://www.vox.com/2020/3/24/21190868/coronavirus-india-modi-lockdown-kashmir
This figure was mentioned BEFORE the lockdown, so the hope would be that the lockdown would dramatically cut the spread of the virus. We also need for the hypothesis that heat and humidity kills covid to be true as it IS very hot now in large parts of India and a hot May to coincide with the relaxation of restrictions would, for once, be ideal.
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Madan
March 26, 2020
Cases in the US as well as deaths are both accelerating at a rate that suggests Trump’s Easter bet may prove to be wrong. US has the highest number of reported active cases in the world now, a 1000 have died and more than 1400 are in serious/critical condition.
But there’s more. Barring maybe 8 states, all the rest report either defined area/widespread community transmission as per the CD website. A half a dozen report widespread, including large states like California, Illinois, Arizona and Georgia. US is either making a very smart bet that will get them out of covid with less economic damage than many other countries or they are making a very dangerous one that will end with many, many landing up in the hospital. Hint: Lindsey Graham himself believes the latter. With Rand Paul’s stunt of not taking precautions after testing (and eventually found positive), Pelosi becoming president or a designated survivor scenario is not out of the question while certainly unlikely at this point.
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Heisenberg
March 26, 2020
Yes Madan, the numbers should be quite high. I just stated small number of cases and high detection rate as an example so I am not called a fear mongerer.
I see many people hailing 21 day lockdown as master stroke or strong action. But it’s important to understand without mass scale testing lockdown is just a pause button, not STOP. For now there’s not much direct information about India’s testing ability or how soon they are expected to scale up. For now we are in the bottom most countries for tests per million.
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Madan
March 26, 2020
“I see many people hailing 21 day lockdown as master stroke or strong action. But it’s important to understand without mass scale testing lockdown is just a pause button, not STOP.” – This I agree with 100%.
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Arjun
March 27, 2020
Johns Hopkins University’s model predicts 120 million infections in India by Mid-June, with more than a million hospitalizations in their best case scenario, i.e. even with current nation-wide lockdown and high compliance. The realistic scenario predicts 200 million cases.
http://cddep.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/covid19.indiasim.March23.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1B2U3gI8tZ5f1DOZIzewUvz5bgp9R45QB7KGuOhksgITidXzVhbkqovFU/
Note that their report also says “A national lockdown is not productive and could cause serious economic damage, increase hunger and reduce the population resilience for handling the infection peak. ”
I just think all these people must be held accountable if their models turn out a dud, as they are causing governments to panic and essentially guiding policy responses.
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Arjun
March 27, 2020
Neil Ferguson, lead author of the Imperial college report that predicted 250k deaths in UK and 1-2 M in US now does a U-turn, says two thirds of those who die this year from Wuhan bat flu would have died anyway and UK deaths will be around 20k and possibly even lower!Imaginie revising a number from 250k to 20k just like that. Will he be fired from his job at Harvard? Likely not.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/25/two-thirds-patients-die-coronavirus-would-have-died-year-anyway/
A new US report from UW now says 80k deaths in US (down from 2 M).
https://news.yahoo.com/us-virus-deaths-may-top-80-000-despite-161924116.html
I think the west will trust “experts” less and less now, given how many BS predictions they have been making, right from economic impacts of Brexit to Trump and now Wuhan bat flu.
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Enigma
March 27, 2020
To all those leftist idiots who mocked Indians showing their appreciation for their care workers, UK did the same thing yesterday. The leftist Jeremy Corbyn also joined in; he seems to a sensible leftist unlike the leftist retards of India.
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Enigma
March 27, 2020
@Arjun, CCP should be held accountable for goofing it up initially.
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Arjun
March 27, 2020
@Enigma: CCP did not goof up, they deliberately covered up the initial outbreak, silenced whistleblower doctors, allowed people from Wuhan to travel all over the world…and then they got WHO to shill for them. Remember in early Jan, WHO was still saying no evidence of human to human transmission and that blanket travel bans are not helpful (after Trump announced a ban on flights from China). And guess what, China just announced a ban on entry of most foreigners today!
Also they then tried to pin the blame for the outbreak on US army, then claimed that there was early evidence of unusual pnemonia outbreaks in Italy in Nov-Dec.
This is Wuhan bat flu, not covid19.
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tonks
March 29, 2020
‘China’s failure to contain the virus can be explained by the divergence between the country’s modernized public health system and its outdated autocratic political structures.
The ills of the draconian latter negated the potential benefits of the former, allowing the virus to spread from Wuhan to Thailand and South Korea and beyond.’
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/china-coronavirus-blame-victory-propaganda-trump.html
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Enigma
March 29, 2020
@Arjun, very true. Also, what is surprising is that the virus has reached far corners of the world but the big Chinese cities – Beijing, Shanghai – remained fairly untouched.This is nothing short of bio-war.
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tonks
March 29, 2020
This made scary reading :
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abishekspeare
May 4, 2020
If brangan ate a mango will he be called a Fruit-BR?
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Voldemort
November 1, 2020
Surprised that this thread has been inactive for more than 6 months!
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Aman Basha
November 27, 2020
8 godforsaken months of suffering and loss for everyone everywhere…And now it seems we are again back in a second wave.
All I can say is, Behen***d yeh ho kya raha hai?
And more importantly, FU China, FU WHO and damn all these worthless “experts” to hell.
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Enigma
November 29, 2020
@Aman, yes the fucking Chinese communist party. The bastards have brought ruin to the entire world. They have literally gotten away with murder. The current crop of western leaders are a bunch of pussies, they are doing nothing. Reagan and Thatcher would have fucking nuked those chinese cunts and extracted revenge by now.
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Aman Basha
November 29, 2020
@Enigma, no one will touch China because of how critical it is to world economy, especially not Reagan or Thatcher, whose record on the AIDS epidemic is rather unflattering. I just flared up after seeing this ridiculous commie study the Chinese are pushing claiming the origin of COVID is from, ahem, India:
https://www.wionews.com/world/chinese-scientists-now-claim-coronavirus-originated-in-india-in-summer-2019-346039
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Enigma
November 30, 2020
@Aman, the CCP c*nts earlier tried to blame the US, but Trump would have none of it. He effectively shut the chinese idiots down. However, Modi is too busy dividing Hindus and Muslims, carrying out beef bans and beating up innocent people. He will be focusing on these issues while the Chinese try to deflect the blame.
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Aman Basha
November 30, 2020
@Enigma, despite my mixed feelings towards the present administration, I had thought that Modi did an okay job with COVID the first time around. But looking at what the BJP has been upto in the Hyderabad municipal elections (of all things), when we seem to be faced with the prospect of a second COVID wave, I am irritated beyond measure.
But the bigger problem facing India is, if not Modi, who? And that is a question with no satisfying answer yet.
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Enigma
December 1, 2020
@Aman, interesting question. Ideally, I would want Manmohan Singh back as the PM. He is a gentle unifier, like Joe Biden, only more qualified and intelligent. I know that he has retired and is in poor health, therefore we cannot expect him back. Congress have messed up in the past, but they are better than the rest and are a great centrist force capable of bringing every one under their wings, unlike the divisive BJP. I would love it if Capt. Amarinder Singh is given charge and is made their PM candidate. But I don’t think that will happen.
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Voldemort
May 8, 2021
Will this pandemic ever end?
How long do we have to keep watching friends and family suffer?
We hoped 2021 will be a welcome change but doesn’t look like it’s faring any better.
Is there any end in sight?
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Satya
May 8, 2021
More than the COVID scare, I am actually worried about the pandemic’s impact on people’s mental health. A big blow to everyone’s confidence and will power. People are losing enthusiasm, relationships are strained, and there is no time to grieve if there is a loss. So much to take in a time when everyone ‘expects’ you to be normal and sane.
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