Why does India have so few Covid-19 cases and deaths? India is four times more populous than the US, but has just 2% the number of cases and only 1.5% of the number of Covid-19 deaths. How has the country, whose per capita income is just tenth of the US, avoided being flattened by the pandemic? ......... The epidemic may have struck later than in other countries. ... India’s 21-day lockdown may have successfully suppressed the epidemic. Physical distancing is one of the best ways to slow the epidemic ...... India has not been able to test enough to count all cases and deaths. ..... India may have protective characteristics against Covid-19. ........
the low share of elderly in the population, the high temperatures and humidity in India, widespread BCG vaccination for tuberculosis, or resistance to malaria have helped India escape the brunt of the pandemic.
....... A Covid-19 death typically is confirmed by a Covid RT-PCR test. Those tests are in short supply and cost INR 4500 ($60) in India. Moreover, if an individual with Covid-like symptoms dies, but a test is not performed before his death, it does not make sense to waste scarce resources on the cadaver. Nor do officials report unconfirmed, Covid-like deaths, because there are many reasons that one may die from flu-like symptoms, and officials do not want to create panic. ....... By shutting down travel and factories, it has eliminated transport-linked deaths and deaths triggered by air pollution. Physical distancing measures may also lower deaths from influenza, just as they reduce Covid-19 deaths. So it is theoretically possible that Covid-19 has had a substantial mortality impact, but that total deaths have not risen because the lockdown reduced non-Covid deaths. .......... Its reproductive rate in India is around 1.8, which implies that approximately 65% percent of the population will be infected without a lockdown or vaccine.
Even if India has a death rate as low as Germany’s 0.3%, two million people could die.
........... the mortality rate from Covid-19 infection is much higher among the elderly: it is
14.8% for those above 80, but just 0.2% for individuals below 39.
In India, only 0.8% of the population is above 80 and nearly 75% are below the age of 40. .......... The fatality rate rises by roughly 30% if a person has cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, or hypertension. India has roughly double the rate of heart disease as Italy, and among the highest prevalence of respiratory diseases in the world. In addition, India is home to one in six people with diabetes. ......... hotter temperatures in India may slow the virus. ....... Countries with latitudes between 30-50 degrees above or below the equator, and average temperatures between 5 and 11 degrees celsius have, thus far, borne a higher burden from Covid. ...... India may face higher transmission rates during the monsoon, which is India’s flu season ......... Covid-19 may not go away in warm weather as colds do, because significant parts of the population remain vulnerable to the virus. The weather alone is insufficient to protect India......... universal BCG vaccination in India, or domestic hydroxychloroquine use to combat malaria. ......... India’s relatively light exposure to Covid-19 remains a puzzle. It may have certain characteristics that protect it from the deadliest impact, but they do not suggest that it will escape the pandemic unscathed. Great care and vigilance are still necessary.
As COVID-19 cases mount in nursing homes, exact locations remain a mystery Cautionary Tale Spurs 'World's First' COVID-19 Psychiatric Ward There was no hand sanitizer on the hospital's psychiatric ward for fear patients would drink it; they slept together on futons in communal rooms and the windows were sealed shut to prevent suicide attempts — all conditions that created the perfect environment for the rapid spread of a potentially deadly virus. ...... it was the reality in the psychiatric ward of South Korea's Daenam Hospital after COVID-19 struck. Eventually health officials put the ward on lockdown, but it wasn't long before all but two of the unit's 103 patients were positive for the virus....... "because how many inpatient general medical units are going to want to take a significantly symptomatic COVID-19 patient who was in the hospital for being acutely suicidal? There are no easy solutions." Coronavirus in a psychiatric hospital: 'It's the worst of all worlds' Social distancing in a psychiatric facility is easier said than done. So far 34 people at Western State Hospital have tested positive for coronavirus......... It's not unusual to hear patients screaming and crying at Western State Hospital, workers say. But lately, they say it's been worse than normal at the massive psychiatric facility just south of Tacoma, Washington........Since COVID-19 hit the hospital a month ago, its Victorian-era buildings have felt "eerie" and "strange," according to workers......... The art room is empty, group therapy is canceled and patients eat alone in the cafeteria. A skeleton staff cares for more than 700 patients battling illnesses that range from schizophrenia to suicidal depression. Older patients are not so much quarantined as stranded, unwilling or unable to get up from their hard plastic beds without help ..... younger patients are free to roam the halls with no masks. ......
"We have people who are sick, and we have people who are absolutely scared."
........... Western State, one of the oldest and largest state psychiatric hospitals west of the Mississippi, was the first in the U.S. to report a coronavirus case. At least 62 other state facilities have followed to date. An outbreak at a Louisiana facility has infected 99 patients and 34 staff members; in New Jersey, all four state psychiatric hospitals have outbreaks and six patients have died....... "You get one case in these institutions, and you've got 10 in the next few days." ......... "These are almost invariably very high-risk patients. They're elderly, they have chronic medical conditions, they're on medications. It's a mess." ......... "It's sad to think about how many staff members are going to be positive, how that is going to trickle down to their families
Prisoners in New York City jails sound alarm as coronavirus spreads: 'I fear for my life' American jails are "ticking time bombs" for COVID-19, a retired sheriff said............ New York‘s notoriously brutal and unsanitary jail system ...... So far, 167 inmates and 114 Department of Correction staff members have tested positive for COVID-19 ...... Jails may act as COVID-19 incubators, sickening and killing inmates and workers and spreading the disease to the broader public. ........ “County jails will suffer the most because they’re the ones that cycle people in and out the quickest.” ...... There are indications that COVID-19 is beginning to spread in lockups around the country. Jail inmates have tested positive in Illinois, New Jersey, California, Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, South Dakota and Washington, D.C. Inmates or staff members have tested positive at state prisons in California, Louisiana, Michigan, Texas, New York and Georgia.......... “We’re at the epicenter of the epicenter,” Skelly said. “You want to talk about social distancing, but you have housing areas in jails that are 50 inmates to one officer, or almost 100 to one.”
The Shutdown Backlash Is Coming Soon—With a Vengeance It’s possible to support the stay-at-home order and still deeply resent it. Trump claims NYC inflating its coronavirus death toll COVID-19 Global Roundup: The grim crisis in care homes Trump questions accuracy of China's coronavirus death toll "Some countries are in big, big trouble and they're not reporting the facts — and that's up to them," the president said. South Korea's ruling party wins election landslide amid coronavirus outbreak Voters reward Moon Jae-in for response to pandemic with biggest majority since transition to democracy in 1987 Weekly jobless claims hit 5.245 million, raising monthly loss to 22 million due to coronavirus Netflix eclipses Disney as coronavirus shakes up entertainment industry Netflix topped its streaming rival in market capitalization as Americans shelter in place. Netflix Worth More Than Disney After Streamer’s Stock Hits All-Time High Gold’s Gym permanently closing all Alabama locations Stocks sink on Wall Street as grim economic news pours in Stephen Colbert calls space station astronaut for social isolation tips "It's a little bit difficult for us to believe that we are truly going back to a different planet," Meir told Colbert in the live, space-to-ground interview, which aired on NASA TV. "And it was very strange to feel that there were three of us up here at the time — now there are six of us again — and we were really the only three humans that were not subjected to [the pandemic] at the current time," she added. "Billions of humans — everybody was dealing with this in somewhere or another and the three of us weren't so it was very strange to see it all unfold." ........ "Well, everybody here back on Earth is dealing with social isolation, and I understand that astronauts are actually trained to deal with isolation," Colbert responded. "Do you have any advice for the rest of us who might be getting cabin fever?" ................ "I think some of the things that help us up here are to continue to get our daily exercise, to keep to a schedule and a routine — those things are important for both our mental and our physical well being," she said. ........... As Colbert's fans probably expected, the talk show host took the opportunity to ask about the space station's treadmill — the Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT). The treadmill, which NASA named after Colbert, launched to the station in 2009 and is still up and "running," Meir said. ........... "I was just on the COLBERT treadmill a few hours ago. There's still a picture of you on it," Meir said, adding that the astronauts use it almost daily. "We weight lift every day and we either bike or run on the treadmill every day. It's very important for us to maintain our bone density and our muscle mass, so you are a regular part of our daily routine, Stephen." .......... Personal care is important when living in isolation, but it's equally important "to make sure that we're playing nicely with others" when isolated together with family members or roommates, Meir said. Much like small groups of astronauts who work together in space for months at a time, people living together in quarantine need "to treat each other kindly with respect," she added. ........... When Colbert asked her for tips on "how not to annoy the people you're trapped alone with for months on end," Meir stressed the importance of good teamwork skills and simply being pleasant — two important qualities in astronauts. "We even have a buzzword for that at NASA, it's called 'expeditionary skills,' and this is something that is very important in terms of how we select astronauts and how we train them," she said. .......... For example, an astronaut with strong "expeditionary skills" displays effective communication strategies, good leadership and good "followership," Meir said. "Taking care of yourself and all of your equipment and supplies" also helps to ease stress levels in the household, although "that can be quite a challenge up here when things are floating around and you're using all the surfaces around you," Meir said. .............. "I like to think of it as all the things that parents tell their children how to play nicely with others, or also the kind of people that I would want to go camping with," Meir said. "All of those features are really important." ......... Functionally happily together in isolation may require a bit of effort, but it's also important that we don't lose our funny bones in all the stress. "Keep having a little bit of fun as well," Meir said, adding that it's good for our psychological well being and overall health.
PREGNANT NURSE DIES FROM CORONAVIRUS, BUT EMERGENCY C-SECTION SAVES HER BABY GIRL NYC medical residents treating coronavirus describe 'living a nightmare' They described their fears and hopes and said they never imagined they would have to bear witness to so much death this early in their careers as doctors. Sorry, Immunity to Covid-19 Won't Be Like a Superpower It's nice to think that recovery will give you absolute protection, but that's not really how this works. ...... we can’t assume that any prior exposure to the virus will make it so a person can’t get sick again. Even if our bodies learn to fight the illness off, we don’t know how long this protection might endure. “Immunity after any infection can range from lifelong and complete to nearly nonexistent,” explained the epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch ........... The problem starts with just the word, immunity. It tends to conjure something binary: Either you have it or you don’t; either you’re a member of the superpowered legion of recovered, or you’re a vulnerable normie like the rest of us. ........
it’s possible protection from Covid-19 will only be short-lived, or that it only goes to some of those who get infected
...... an immunity continuum. ....... At the other end is no immunity at all, where a history of prior illness doesn’t seem to matter—or, indeed, where it could even make things worse. Having an immune response to one strain of the virus causing dengue fever, for example, can worsen your reaction to the other types. ..............
a state you might think of as “immunishness,” an intermediate level of protection which dwindles over time.
......... We don’t even know which types of antibodies are most crucial for preventing SARS-CoV-2 from infecting cells. Without that information, it will be very hard to design blood tests that deliver reasonable estimates of the strength of someone’s immunity, in the sense of how likely they are to become infected or how severe their symptoms might be. ............. Previous studies of older, less dangerous coronaviruses seem to suggest that protection is short-lived: antibody levels fall off significantly within a few months, and continue to decline. ..........Those who recover from severe cases could end up with stronger immunity than those who were asymptomatic. .......... tests might be turning up false negatives and then later picking up signs of the initial infection. ....... In all the talk about issuing certificates or concert wristbands so that people who recover can be sent into our schools and nursing homes and shelters, we tend to overlook the often-squishy meaning of immunity. The truth is, our immune responses to this virus aren’t likely to be permanent or perfect. It’s nice to imagine that once someone’s been infected they become a knight in antibody armor, but that’s not really how it works.
Hear me out, maybe the fact that 22 million Americans immediately had to file for unemployment because they live paycheck-to-paycheck says something about stagnant wages in America and shines line on a broken system.
Food for thought given this story, "Taiwan's coronavirus response is among the best globally"...
Could that be because the Taiwanese are among the most familiar with the duplicitous ways of the PRC government so they believed the worst immediately?https://t.co/C4Ht0tO9qz
Taiwan's coronavirus response is among the best globally On January 25, as the world was still waking up to the potential danger of the novel coronavirus spreading rapidly out of central China, two governments recorded four new infections within their territory. ........... Australia and Taiwan have similar sized populations of about 24 million people, both are islands, allowing strict controls over who crosses their borders, and both have strong trade and transport links with mainland China. Ten weeks on from that date, however, Australia has almost 5,000 confirmed cases, while Taiwan has less than 400. ....... Taiwan has a world-class health care system, with universal coverage. ........ "Taiwan rapidly produced and implemented a list of at least 124 action items in the past five weeks to protect public health" .......... Taiwan was one of the most at-risk areas outside of mainland China -- owing to its close proximity, ties and transport links. ....... Among those early decisive measures was the decision to ban travel from many parts of China, stop cruise ships docking at the island's ports, and introduce strict punishments for anyone found breaching home quarantine orders. .......... Taiwanese officials also moved to ramp up domestic face-mask production to ensure the local supply, rolled out islandwide testing for coronavirus -- including retesting people who had previously unexplained pneumonia -- and announced new punishments for spreading disinformation about the virus. ........ Well-trained and experienced teams of officials were quick to recognize the crisis and activated emergency management structures to address the emerging outbreak. ....... Taiwan's rapid and transparent response -- with medical officials holding daily briefings on the matter -- has been held up as an example of how democracies can still rein in epidemics, even as some were claiming only an autocratic government like China's could effectively control such a rapidly spreading virus. Taiwan also avoided the type of strict lockdowns that characterized the response in China and many other countries. .........
why Western countries did not follow Taiwan's lead in January and February when they still had a chance remains unclear.
