Quote (theCrossbones @ 30 Apr 2021 21:32)
The flu is on a rampage.
Every year India burns people in the park over the flu.
https://i.imgur.com/eJq1Djv.pngquestion for the virus deniers.. anti maskers.. what possible solution exists here other than what the US has done? lockdown/mask/social distance etc.?
Quote (Thor123422 @ 30 Apr 2021 22:09)
I have two Indian post-docs that I work with. According to them, who have family in India, they basically unlocked the country and allowed mass gatherings, sometimes as big as several tens of thousands of people. They've vaccinated a lot of elderly people but virtually no people below 60.
Funny, this is a direct refutation of everybody, especially Bob, who keeps claiming that if we just vaccinate the elderly and open up we will be fine.
Yeah, India did exactly that, and now they've got mass graves.
India hasnt nearly vaccinated all elderly as far as I know, and a lot of their vaccinations were conducted with crappy vaccines with low efficacy.
And then again, the situation only seems to have exploded in the wake of huge mass gatherings. Just look at this shit:
So to answer Crossbones' question: mask wearing and keeping mass gatherings banned seem like the obvious answer. Not much more you can do in India.
It should be obvious that China- or Western-style lockdowns are not feasible in a place like India where there's no social safety net and ppl would just start to starve one week in.
And as bad as India's current situation is, we must look at it against the backdrop of the country's size and growth. Each day, India has a net population growth of around 37k people, so 3.5k deaths are barely making a dent.
The most realistic take, imho, is that the surprise about this latest surge is misguided. What was actually surprising is that it took this long until India saw a huge covid outbreak. Given its density and horrific sanitary conditions, an outbreak of this scale had to be expected a lot earlier.