Corona virus

[blr_p]

There are around 11 lakhs people in quarantine across all parts of India, however the method of contact tracing defies all rules/ laws of epidemiology. There are definitive rules of quarantine for diseases with more than 60 percent asymptomatic cases, but NOTHING has been implemented.

Such as ?

They should have asked for help a month ago.

What exactly does this help entail ?

It's a miracle/ medical mystery that India is still having very low case load.

Why ? ever since independence this country has been slated to fail. People still continue to make such predictions and when the results don't show end up looking like dunces.

As of now the hospitals are no more busy than they were a year ago at this time. Proof that the measures are working

India has to lift the lockdown and face the virus head on, lots of lives will be lost. But it won't exceed the number India will loose due to the economic situation.

Phased opening is what every one else is doing. If cases spike we clamp down on hotspots. The death counts in India will be low because we won't be counting people with co-morbidities. Unlike Italy & US that do and end up with inflated numbers.

UP: Four patients die, 102 test positive in last 24 hours

Among the four deaths on Tuesday, two were reported from Agra — both linked to a private hospital that has been sealed now — and one each from Kanpur and Moradabad, taking the total death toll in the state to nine.

indianexpress.com

Agra District Magistrate Prabhu Narain Singh said that both the coronavirus-positive patients, who died on Tuesday, had underlining health ailments.

“One had lung carcinoma along with kidney failure, both leading to decreased immunity and super infection.

The other patient had intra-cerebral haemorrhage that required ventilator support.

Henceforth, COVID-19 should not be considered as the cause of death. In such type of patients, primary disease mortality is very high.

Both the patients may have died in normal circumstances. Samples were taken after their death as Paras Hospital is one major hotspot,” the DM said, adding that with the four fresh cases, the district now has 23 cases linked to Paras Hospital and their contacts, 14 linked to Fatehpur Sikri patient and five contacts of a local physician.

Post automatically merged: Apr 24, 2020

More on this died of vs died with debate

Died of Covid, or died with Covid? | India News - Times of India

India News: On Friday Wuhan in China revised its Covid-19 death toll upward by 50% to 3,869And New York city last week upped its toll by 3,778 after it began repo.

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Post automatically merged: Apr 24, 2020

Bro, it's very simple. Firstly, we knew about quarantining measures before you told us.

And don't you think the govt deserves credit for aggressive contact tracing ? because i'm learning this was not the case in other countries. It was much more lax and the results are apparent in the case loads of these countries.

You didn't know the extent of it. How many in the whole country ? where to find this info because its not in any report. So i went through various health directorate docs and added the numbers. Around one million and that isn't the full number. I found it odd no one in the media picked up on it. That alone takes out a lot of potential infected. The rest is due to many mistakes made by people who did not follow rules.

I have friends who arrived from abroad and have been in quarantine and being visited by govt officials. However, this is true for only later cases. Earlier cases weren't handled with enough strictness and there wasn't any strict testing of passengers arriving from abroad. There was only thermal screening till as late as 20th March. How do I know? I have friends who came on 19th.

Yes, kilroyquasar mentioned that. But there is more. In one of the meetings the centre rapped certain states for a "gap". What is this gap ?

The people that were supposed to be quarantined were not in quarantine (!)

Meaning the state was not checking that they were in quarantine.

Which states screwed up here ? not mentioned. But if one looks at which states have the larger numbers we get an idea.

So this slip up is on the govts of those states. Then they had to go catch more people and quarantine them. This is why the quarantine numbers are so high. So they attempted to fix the problem but the damage was done by then.

As I have said previously, it is very simple for people like me. You seem to be impressed or at least satisfied by our govt response, and I do agree with you, some decisions taken have been better than those taken by other countries. However, in our opinion, they came too late and the response has been a little reactive and knee-jerky. The main issue I personally have is why are our lives being held hostage due to a disease which would have been so easily contained just because of the fact that it didn't originate in India and all that was needed to contain it was do strict quarantining of all passengers from abroad as early as data about this virus was coming out. I clearly remember, us in the TE whatsapp group talking about it as early as first/second week of January as some of us were receiving shipments from Aliexpress.

It could have been far worse than it is right now. It isn't because of the steps we took.

I don't think a lock down could have been avoided even if we acted two weeks earlier than we did.

To avoid the lock down would mean we would have to catch every single person that was potentially affected right at the start. The compliance number here has to be over 90%

We missed that target because certain states screwed up by not following the centres directives.

The models were predicting one lakh cases by April and then doubling every three days.

So, again, please don't assume that our opinion of the govt comes from a place of ignorance and we don't know what the govt has been doing. Our opinions come from the fact, that we believe our govts response has been unsatisfactory, irrespective of the plaudits you bestow upon their actions.

By that metric every govt in the world is responsible for this then ? barring Taiwan and possibly Vietnam.

But our numbers aren't where they should be isn't it. People were and still are predicting doom & gloom.

Lastly, there is a latest order by MHA, that all those companies who open their offices or factories will be held responsible and penal action will be taken on them under the Disaster Management Act, if even one of their employees tests positive for Covid-19. By the simple logic of this order, I think the govt should put itself behind bars first, because their inadequacies allowed the disease to enter the country in the first place.

Look this is a team effort. Everybody has responsibility.

i've seen comments that said their employers expected them to work but getting sick was not employers problem. In other words employers were washing their hands entirely of the matter of safety of their employees. If employee does not turn up because they are scared then what happens ?

This is a major concern because the economy has undergone a reset. That means people will not come back to work immediately because they are afraid.

Now employers have to enforce social distancing and ensure workers follow the guidelines so we can open the country up.

We have to get going and ensure next wave will be smaller still

 

[red dragon]

^^ Really sick of this clown. Hospitals are not busy now the entire country is in lockdown. Not because of anything has worked.
If you're so confident that government is indeed working, show me a public document of a single area wise plan.
You haven't possibly seen a real ventilator, gasping patient in your life.
How do you want me to explain something like Contact Network Parameter Estimation over a tech forum?
I evaluated a variety of commonly implemented public health interventions by changing the contact patterns within the network, transmissibility of the disease, or both. For each strategy, I calculated several epidemiologic quantities: 1) the epidemic threshold, Tc, which may be raised by contact-reduction interventions, 2) the transmissibility of the disease, T, which may be reduced by transmission-reduction interventions, 3) if T<Tc, the expected size of a small outbreak 4) if T>Tc, the probability of a large-scale epidemic 5) if T>Tc, the expected size of an epidemic, should one occur.
Everything is based on a particular SSUN (Das Nagar Howrah)
Now tell me what did you understand?
I had to write down the entire calculation TWICE on a whiteboard to make a moron epidemiologist from ICMR to understand how epidemic control works.
There are reasons for which they are paying me a lot of money only to plan for them.
If you think, things are really hunky dory, wait till 27th/28th, your beloved PM will start begging for another 15 days extension of lockdown ( that's basically the only thing he has been doing since March), this time people won't be so kind to him ( my salute to Indians for tolerating a clown this long) and you will see what covid 19 really can do ( AT LEAST 7 POCKETS IN INDIA IS BEYOND HOPE OF ANY KIND, sorry, it's a relatively smaller sacrifice we have to endure)
If you have doubts about my credentials and claims, you can contact the DG of ICMR ( Dr. Bhargava) phone number, email etc are public documents. If you are important enough, he will reply you.
If you wanna go the technical route, I will flood with information in between work. But I doubt you'll understand anything.
This is the first time I have leaked information without taking any name. Hope it's ok with the mods.

 

[smAsh]

Meanwhile in America
Trump suggested something new to treat conona...

"Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked but you’re going to test it. Supposing you brought the light inside of the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that too. Sounds interesting. And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. And is there a way we can do something, by an injection inside or almost a cleaning? It would be interesting to check that. That you’re gonna have to use medical doctors with."

 

[booo]

^^ Really sick of this clown. Hospitals are not busy now the entire country is in lockdown. Not because of anything has worked.
If you're so ****ing confident that government is indeed working, show me a public document of a single area wise plan.
You idiot, haven't possibly seen a real ventilator, gasping patient in your life.
How do you want me to explain something like Contact Network Parameter Estimation over a tech forum?
I evaluated a variety of commonly implemented public health interventions by changing the contact patterns within the network, transmissibility of the disease, or both. For each strategy, I calculated several epidemiologic quantities: 1) the epidemic threshold, Tc, which may be raised by contact-reduction interventions, 2) the transmissibility of the disease, T, which may be reduced by transmission-reduction interventions, 3) if T<Tc, the expected size of a small outbreak 4) if T>Tc, the probability of a large-scale epidemic 5) if T>Tc, the expected size of an epidemic, should one occur.
Everything is based on a particular SSUN (Das Nagar Howrah)
Now tell me what the **** did you understand?
I had to write down the entire calculation TWICE on a whiteboard to make a moron epidemiologist from ICMR to understand how epidemic control works.
There are reasons for which they are paying me a lot of money only to plan for them.
If you think, things are really hunky dory, wait till 27th/28th, your beloved PM will start begging for another 15 days extension of lockdown ( that's basically the only thing he has been doing since March), this time people won't be so kind to him ( my salute to Indians for tolerating a clown this long) and you will see what covid 19 really can do ( AT LEAST 7 POCKETS IN INDIA IS BEYOND HOPE OF ANY KIND, sorry, it's a relatively smaller sacrifice we have to endure)
If you have doubts about my credentials and claims, you can contact the DG of ICMR ( Dr. Bhargava) phone number, email etc are public documents. If you are important enough, he will reply you.
If you wanna go the technical route, I will flood with information in between work. But I doubt you'll understand anything.
This is the first time I have leaked information without taking any name. Hope it's ok with the mods.

this is exactly my point, they were supposed to setup the country to handle when the shutdown is lifted. they havnt done shit. still buying test kits from china.
1. where are numbers for test kits and ventilators?
2. where are the numbers for icu beds per 1000 people?

 

[red dragon]

I do feel really bad for that man. There is nothing much left to try in US. They have tried IV Ig, plasmapheresis, thalidomide, some anti neoplastic drugs with immunomodulatory effects. They do have real state of the art critical care units, brilliant ( the best in the world) intensivists, pulmonologists. But nothing is working. Both the L/S variants have mutated considerably, high intracellular zinc level is not even working in vitro now.
This is the reality of the situation. Even with 1 percent mortality after mutation this bug spreads with lighting speed (toxicity of a mutating virus is inversely proportional to the infection potential/ infectivity) and can infect thousands from a single source. That is the scary part some people fail to understand.
Once the lockdown is lifted, on theory, a city like Kolkata can have more than 70 percent infected in 3-5 days if there are 5-8 asymptomatic spreaders, calculate the 70 percent of Kolkata`s population, say around 1 crore, of them at least 1% will die, which is 100k. So 1 lakh people will die if 8 asymptomatic carriers start moving around.
Now someone please explain to me, how did the lockdown help you? Those idiots at health ministry are boasting about how millions they have saved by lockdown, they should have told that they have gifted millions, 2 more months to live (and ensure that remains like hell for the lockdown)

 

[smAsh]

It is hard to digest but Asymptomatics are bigger problem than symptomatic pateints. Symptomatics can be identified and treated. Asymptomatics can't , when we don't have any testing in action.

 

[gamingstill]

They are planning to open Delhi Metro without mass testing.

 

[red dragon]

Mods, please do something about blr_p
I have missed a very dangerous comment. According to him, USA etc are giving inflated number as they are including deaths with co-morbidities and covid 19.
Other than 563 deaths, each and everyone in Europe who died had some co-morbidities. That's the biggest issue here, co-morbidities helping the virus.
West Bengal government is being hammered by every sensible medical professional for not including covid 19 as cause of death in a CRF patient. It is the worst thing one can do. Hide the virus in DC behind co-morbidities. It's a crime. He is openly promoting this behaviour.
I understand his political leanings, but is it acceptable to spread BJP's propaganda in this forum!!??
I am a Marxist, shall start writing from that angle?
I can and I would if he's allowed. Let's see who writes better.
I don't even give a flying **** about personal attacks from him. But this is insanity.

 

[adder]

@red dragon
No one is spreading propaganda, since you on the record said you hate Modi, I can see how one can see things differently with hate, hate clouds me or you. There will always be views on the other side which you have to respect.

I can spin it the other way around and ask about all the venom/bashing here on the government, even before this covid crysis, for other reasons like CAA or bashing CAA because of hate for article 370 or bashing article 370 because they hated GST/demonetization. In my own house my dad hates modi, I and my brother are neutral, i.e criticize and praise when its due.

If you cannot counter without name calling and using words (which btw no one is forcing you too) you can remain silent. There will always be views on the other side which you have to respect.

Meanwhile

Mystery of India's lower death rates seems to defy coronavirus trend

Skin infection in toes possibly due to covid 19

Covid Toes among kids: New symptom of novel coronavirus infection

First some dermatologists in Italy found it. Now, it is being reported in the US. There is sudden surge in the cases similar to frostbite or pernio among kids in the areas severely affected by Covid-19. Some doctors have nicknamed it as Covid Toes.

www.indiatoday.in

 

[Renegade]

Please refrain from name calling. Everyone has the right to quote half facts to support their claims. Everyone else has the right to counter that. We should learn to have the difficult conversations.

Thankfully unlike other difficult conversations on religion or politics, this discussion will have an outcome and a transparent one at that, that too within 2-3 months. Competence, foresight, preparedness and response will be put to test and will have an outcome. You cannot take credit for the success without taking blame for the failure.

 

[red dragon]

@red dragon
No one is spreading propaganda, since you on the record said you hate Modi, I can see how one can see things differently with hate, hate clouds me or you.

I can spin it the other way around and ask about all the venom/bashing here on the government..

If you cannot counter without name calling and using words (which btw no one is forcing you too) you can remain silent. There will always be views on the other side which you have to respect.

Meanwhile

Mystery of India's lower death rates seems to defy coronavirus trend

Skin infection in toes possibly due to covid 19

Covid Toes among kids: New symptom of novel coronavirus infection

First some dermatologists in Italy found it. Now, it is being reported in the US. There is sudden surge in the cases similar to frostbite or pernio among kids in the areas severely affected by Covid-19. Some doctors have nicknamed it as Covid Toes.

www.indiatoday.in

Sure, I will be silent from now on. It was neither name calling or political bashing I was talking about.
He posted a very dangerous thing. You may not agree with me now, but you will all see, what I meant by hiding covid 19 behind co-morbidities is a crime.
I'm not at all clouded by Modi hatred. I am now working for his government and taking a lot of money from the pockets of taxpayers like you.
You posted the video yourself and I talked about that medical mystery 2 days before.
If you guys think, I'm not eligible enough, it's perfectly fine. I will stop posting completely, and just do my work. I'm not ego driven, it's just work for me.
BTW, it's not just Modi, I have strong disagreements with his bigger oppositions too and wrote an open letter to CM of West Bengal. It was published in a newspaper ( possibly TOI ) yesterday ( Bengali NRI doctors association warns WB)
Political backlash is the last thing that worries me. If you can point to a single propaganda/ single misinformation I posted here, I request the mods to ban me.
If that ventilator / my lab kits/ co morbidities are not propaganda, what is?
If anybody can point towards a single evidence of that ventilator being used on a human or one copy of report using mylab kit ( not that photoshopped Biorad one, health ministry forwarded by mistake) will take my words back.
And NO SIR, epidemiology is a science. I can not respect/ agree to claims that are against science/ beyond logic. I earn my bread and feed my kid and live for others with science and logic and not afraid of anything else but Karma.
Take care.

 

[Marcus Fenix]

Everyone has the right to quote half facts to support their claims.

I don't buy this viewpoint at all. Like you said in terms of politics/religion there can be many shades to the truth but when it comes to hard science there's no place for "alternative facts".

You can spread your opinions as much as you want when it comes to your political leanings but this topic is not where internet keyboard warriors get to argue with professionals on their subject area.

If we go down this slippery slope then what's next?

Do we start a anti-vaccine movement on TE saying that the medical professionals and pharmas are in bed to sell vaccines which cause autism?

Or do we start listening to flat-earthers as well?

 

[Chaos]

Blr_p is a troll plain and simple. Don't feed him. Just ignore his comments like it ain't there.

I am watching this thread to read @red dragon 's inputs and thoughts not those of some half brained troll who knows zilch about the subject at hand.

 

[chiron]

I had him on ignore for a week or so before people started referring about him. Yes, pretending this guy doesn't exist is a good strategy. It frustrates me to read his posts. Renegade also has excused blr_p's explicit bigotry even though he tries to pretend to be a voice of reason here.

 

[red dragon]

Guys, I have nothing personal against blr_p or his political ideology. Honestly he seems a smart person to me. I do not have much presence in online forums except medicalGeek (ex-mod), DocsBoard and few like those. This is the only Indian forum I`m a member of. But I am a certified epidemiologist working actively in this pandemic. I just thought my limited experience may help some people here and started posting in this topic.
I am open about my hate for Modi`s policy of lockdown only approach and wrote extensively in some online medical journals which got published in 2 indexed journals ( 1st and 3rd most popular medical journals) in their April issues ( everything is public document). I have been attacked on twitter by his fans ( including doctors), they called me pseudo Indian, Firangi, urban naxal among many other beautiful things. They did not even leave my wife ( who works in the same field but never wrote a word about India anywhere) A doctor who did MBBS with me, wrote that I am married to an American and probably working as a US spy with WHO. I have not seen or spoken to this guy for more than 18 years. My wife is Slovak, we live in Czech Republic for now. Never lived in US other than a few weeks for either work or vacation. I tried to contact my classmate ( getting phone numbers of medical college classmate is very easy) numerous times, but he never picked up.
I didnt have much time to waste on twitter as it was worse than war in Spain, however the IT cell blocked my twitter handles multiple time.
Anyway, after all this, now I am working with Modi`s government indirectly.
Just thought of sharing few thoughts with my techie Indian friends and I do not know any Indian in my daily life.
I have no hidden political agenda, all my work in this epidemic and in Africa before, everything we do for drug addicts, prostitutes and other fringe population are public documents. Of course I can not reveal my full name etc. here, but everything is available online. I have nothing really to hide.

 

[Marcus Fenix]

Why are you wasting your time explaining yourself? Let it be.

 

[Renegade]

I don't buy this viewpoint at all. Like you said in terms of politics/religion there can be many shades to the truth but when it comes to hard science there's no place for "alternative facts".

The science part of it is beyond most of us to debate as we are not qualified enough. Even @red dragon has admitted that the science of it all is not absolute and we are learning as it unravels. Even the scientists around the world, nobel prize winners at that, have differing opinions on a lot of aspects. It's not as black and white then, is it.

Also are these threads really talking about scientific facts alone. They are full of opinions on who did what, when, what went wrong, what we learnt retrospectively.

I just expect everyone to be civil with each other and disagree respectfully.

Renegade also has excused blr_p's explicit bigotry even though he tries to pretend to be a voice of reason here.

I am disappointed you feel this way. You are welcome to report such incidents. I don't go around reading all posts and especially not of the person in question because the way they are formatted is an eye sore. The post that you reported did not qualify for any action for the reasons I mentioned there. There are other moderators on the forum who may have a different view than me and more visibility than me on past incidents. Eddy and Logistopath are far more sensible than I. Please use the report button whenever you come across such posts.

 

[adder]

I don't buy this viewpoint at all. Like you said in terms of politics/religion there can be many shades to the truth but when it comes to hard science there's no place for "alternative facts".

Science is always evolving, one study will say eat this its good or help in preventing a condition only a few months later you will find something that is opposite. Same goes to planets or is it a moon.
Even covid 19, one study says that it doesnt die even at 60c and is only killed at boiling point, or it remains in plastics for 3 to 5 days and steel for even longer, yet on thursdays white house corona task force debrief, they say its now killed fast in sunlight, or by just humidity.

Even on medicene test studies lots of lobbying goes to promote or supress a drug. The medicenes with patents expired will be shot down in studies, only to promote a very expensive patent protected drugs, that can sell for 100 or 1000x the price of the former drug.

I read all and come up with my own conclusions.

 

[rdst_1]

I guess best option right now is to not let those views irk us and stop responding to them.

 

[Renegade]

Just thought of sharing few thoughts with my techie Indian friends and I do not know any Indian in my daily life.

Your posts are most insightful and I like reading them. So please keep them coming. From what you have mentioned so far, you are riding quite an emotional roller coaster. And it's understandable. Don't get drawn into justifying your posts if you don't want to.