Interesting listen. Here is the Garry Craig video referred to for improved breathing
public-health experts have highlighted two primary concerns with the Indian government’s response to the ongoing crisis.
First, the health ministry has restricted testing for COVID-19 to the few government-accredited laboratories in the country.
Second, the government is limiting the tests only to those with a travel history, and those who came in contact with international travellers.
In the press conference, Lal Agarwal (secretary of the Health ministry) stated that twelve states across the country had reported positive cases of COVID-19.
Given the extent to which it had spread already, public-health experts had hoped that the testing parameters would be expanded to include people without a travel history, which would reveal the full scale of crisis.
But Agarwal made it clear that the Indian government had “no plans to revise testing parameters, as testing everyone would create panic.”
Experts also hoped that the health ministry would allow private laboratories to test for COVID-19, so as to not overwhelm the government sector. “There is a real concern that the government is not expanding testing parameters to include everyone because they want to keep the numbers low,” an epidemiologist working with a global-health organisation said, on the condition of anonymity. “If you are not looking for cases, you are not going to find any cases. How can the government know that there is no community transmission, when they are not testing enough people?”
As of 12 March, the testing was limited to 52 government centres, and there were 56 collection centres where samples could be given. But Agarwal maintained that the country had adequate testing centres and “there was no need to involve the private sector for testing.”
The central government has also invoked the Epidemics Diseases Act of 1897, which allows a state to prosecute any person or institution violating quarantine norms. The decision was taken after a patient in Bangalore and another in Punjab, who had been quarantined in local hospitals with symptoms of COVID-19, went missing.
Coronavirus Testing Criteria and Numbers by Country - Worldometer
www.worldometers.info
India is not even in that list, we're up to 5k tests i would assume which is low.
For exampe ?
I don't know of any issues with the quality of testing. They double check samples in Pune as well.Blockchain Tracker
~Vibhor Tyagi (Techie at Engineer.AI)
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Although things are being looked into with severity, there is almost no reason to believe that the minuscule infection rate of 1% (which India currently holds) cant get any much worse. I've seen the news reports for these 'testing' facilities, but have not been clarified about the amenities they provide - I don't think anybody has, for the fear of contracting the disease for themselves.
In a country with an insane amount of medical professionals, failing to curb the ourbreak, will bring only shame to the nation.
~Vibhor Tyagi (Techie at Engineer.AI)
Dr R R Gangakhedkar, the chief epidemiologist at ICMR, said only those with symptoms of Covid-19 were being tested as present. "Everyone with flu symptoms doesn't need to get tested because the spread of the disease is limited at present. Even among those with travel history or possible contact with an infected individual, testing is advised only if he or she has symptoms of Covid-19. This is because if the test is conducted in asymptomatic individual the viral load is likely to be less and that may result in false negative results. Such individual may get a false sense of security and continue to spread the disease," he said. ICMR scientists said the advisory on testing may be changed if there is enough evidence of Covid-19 reaching stage III.
Good summary. He's done his homework and i noticed the medium article i posted here a week back in there as well
In any case the reason not to involve private labs seems to be the govt labs are presently under utilised.
In the teleconference with the SAARC leaders on Sunday, Modi was proudly saying we went from one test facility to 60 in two months.
Couple of interviews to listen to that give us better understanding.now 2 rapid-testing labs & 49 additional testing facilities are to come up by the end of this week (right now we have 72 operational).
furthermore, many pvt testing labs are said to have pitched in with the proposal that they'd conduct the tests for free (when testing in pvt labs could cost anything from 9k-12k acc. to an estimate; costs 5k to the govt. per test OTOH). at the least the govt. could perhaps subsidise them for the pvt centres.
My friends wife & son were to return from the UK on the 20th. India blocked flights from London but they allow transit flights from the Gulf. So they should just be able to get back with Emirates.Russia is building a chinese style make shift hospital, it will take them about a month.
We should do too, stop all foreign flights, Dont understand why we still have flights coming from middle east. Close all inter state borders, only allow cargo movement and trucks.
Today, West Bengal reported its first case of the first coronavirus infected.
Those who dont have symptoms are instructed to self quarantine, I don't think there is a mandatory quarantine in a government facility unless they come from a hotspot or show symptoms on arrival. Those people arriving can have the virus in them and show no symptoms and spread it.My friends wife & son were to return from the UK on the 20th. India blocked flights from London but they allow transit flights from the Gulf. So they should just be able to get back with Emirates.
They are going to be guests of the govt for 14 days after
They were in Italy before they went to the UK. They went to the UK because the govt here insisted anyone returning from Italy should show a certificate of fitness from an Italian doctor.Those who dont have symptoms are instructed to self quarantine, I don't think there is a mandatory quarantine in a government facility unless they come from a hotspot or show symptoms on arrival. Those people arriving can have the virus in them and show no symptoms and spread it.
You see daily reports of people escaping quarantine.
They should criminalize it.
So here are 3 things to note (1) Highly Educated, Individual learning at Oxford University (2) Highly Educated Doctor Father with Money (3) Highly Educated - Highly Influenced Mother with Money.....This trio affected a large housing Comunity + Probably A Whole City + A whole Major Hospital which has nothing to do with this kind of treatment + two administrative offices that actually run the entire WB state.
After this came into light CM get Angry and the public lost their head in anger....The next appropriate steps will be to cancel his father's doctor's license and sack the mother from her post.
The death of Siddiq has left several questions unanswered including indications of procedural lapses that let a heavily symptomatic patient leave one medical facility, go to Hyderabad and then be sent back in a day.
Even with routine Medical treatment, allegations of Medical Negligence have been a knee jerk reaction to any unfortunate treatment outcome. This blame game without any basic inquiry by experts, not only demoralizes those working in difficult circumstances, but diverts from root cause analysis to improve.
Massive rise in these allegations over last two decades have led to Defensive Medicine, where focus of Doctors inadvertently shifts away from providing critical treatment, to avoid becoming a punching bag when recovery is not as expected. This is a huge concern even if the added treatment costs when Doctors “play safe” are ignored. Such a scenario has to be avoided all the more given the current Public Health Crisis.
Dont understand why we still have flights coming from middle east
50 labs across the country test 10 so 500 random tests across the country. They don't find anything yet so we're still at stage 2
ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL !!
They should criminalize it.
Can you post the link ?now report is that 26k suspected infected from iran might be flown in.
I thought all airports were scanning or at least that's what the ministry has claimed. Over ten lakhs nowthat was one of the prime reasons they didnt go about testing any & everybody. even i returned from europe about a week back but other than the mandatory declaration-form & temp.-scanning, nothing else was done. temp.-scanning wasn't even done at Mumbai; only at delhi airport. this, probably because i returned from denmark (though it had more than 500 cases at the time, no casualty though).
Govt has to work with religious figures. They are not doing this.this first casualty was forcibly removed from the hospital as per initial reports. a localiite informed me all's not so simple as well; the 'compensation-act' was also at play. later 4 suspects with travel-history to dubai threatened & turned away health officials who came visiting their place in the same state (bhatkal) citing religious reason. 11 suspects returning from dubai also fled a Mumbai hospital citing the same. and now telangana has a spike thanks to a group that came on a religious 'preaching' tour to the state from indonesia. clearly we're being very lenient as well in some quarters.
The Epidemic Disease Act of 1897 has to be invoked at the state level. Thought it wasIPC has provisions for it they say, but not enforced. only UP has become the first state to enforce criminalisation, but it still pales in comparison to what italy, korea, singapore etc are charging the irresponsible with.
Can you post the link ?
I thought all airports were scanning or at least that's what the ministry has claimed. Over ten lakhs now
Maybe these people will not cooperate. Because it means they have to tell their people to avoid places of worship. Separates them from their flock.
The Epidemic Disease Act of 1897 has to be invoked at the state level. Thought it was
She's quite hopeful of a vaccine coming out sooner than expected.
I see, that is quite a few people. Says mostly blue collar so i guess they have no work.sorry, not iran, but from gulf:
Mumbai prepares to quarantine 26k Indians coming from Gulf
Coronavirus in Mumbai: Mumbai prepares to quarantine 26k Indians coming from Gulf | India News - Times of India
India News: The Mumbai civic body prepared to welcome around 26,000 Indians expected to land in the city between Thursday and March 31 from Covid-19-hit Gulf natitimesofindia.indiatimes.com
Both these countries were in dire straits. Who else could offer them supplies in a number that mattered ? if they had to resort to black mail its only an indication of how bad things were for them. For China to do this is a serious loss of face. It's in effect begging at gun point. Think about that.BTW, all's not what it seems to be. now dont know to what extent is this true, but as per an acquaintance who has some contacts who were involved in the evacuation-process of Indians from china & later iran, told me that India was royally blackmailed in the process! said that we were literally blackmailed & forced to give a lot of medical supplies to china (despite our repeatedly emphasising that we ourselves have limited supplies and would require them for our own use if and when covid reaches India) in order to evacuate our last batch of Indians out of china who had contacted the Indian embassy and the consulates late (some ~60-80 people; this was around 2-5 days after the pakistani students going online ranting against their govt & praising the GoI had gone viral). later iran too took cue from this & asked us for supplies & lab-facilities in order to allow the evacuation. if you recall the reports & some tweets of how ham-handed & arrogant was iran's behaviour initially and how suddenly it changed after it was given what it had asked for, you'd get a hint.
What support has India given to Iran in the face of US sanctions. The recent ones ? we've cut our oil imports from them to zero.and all this happened in both the countries only with India, no other nation, not UK germany france japan etc, whose citizens too were stuck in china & who had ample medical supplies for 'giveaway'! if true, hope India returns the 'favour' in kind to both of them, atleast to iran (a lot of insiders have always said and maintained that iranians are an extremely untrustworthy lot! they've rarely stood by India int'lly anyway, despite India's unprecedented support to them in the face of US-sanctions on the country), after the world's out of this chinese-mess! hope we've learned our *another* lesson here. other countries will also have observed what happened. we can't let this become a precedent to get blackmailed endlessly by every tom dick & harry!
I can imagine there is an element of truth to what you've said here.nevertheless, right now some around 240-270 Indians are still stranded in iran because they're all said to be covid-positive & i think iran has also assured India of their tests & treatment (now after they got what they wanted). as of now GoI has been providing for their medical help, food, accommodation, etc. through our embassy in tehran & hired local help from our money.
anyway, this has some hints as to what transpired & the aforementioned reg. our last china-trip - https://bit.ly/2we9EJJ]