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India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates

• dartharva 6y ago
  I would like to point out that even with the existing amount of tests, that are much lower in number than those in the USA and Europe, the COVID19 test positivity rate in India is among the lowest in the world (4-5%).
• i_have_to_speak 6y ago
  Ah yet another cant-be-true-they're-hiding-something article? Surely they can't be doing better than developed countries? FWIW, India did implement a stronger lockdown much earlier on in the curve than other countries. State and federal authorities went lock-step in their actions, and with consistent messaging. Police enforced the lockdown at times even brutally, getting the point across to the general public. Indians watched UK and US struggle through a denial and late response in disbelief, like watching a car crash in slow motion.
  • agumonkey 6y ago
    It's not really about judging or comparing unfairly, it's more about india's population density in the case of a contagious disease.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  • rrmm 6y ago
    It seems countries are learning something from the those affected earlier which is good. But there are a huge number of under counts to be seen in the all-cause mortality data. I have my fingers crossed for everyone going through this, but only after the fact are we going to get a good idea of what happened (and that goes for Western countries too).
    • dao- 6y ago
      "U.S. deaths soared in early weeks of pandemic, far exceeding number attributed to covid-19" https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/27/covid-19-death-toll-undercounted/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/27/cov...
      • rrmm 6y ago
        exactly.
  • carlsborg 6y ago
    India started lockdown when confirmed Covid deaths was at about 200 or 300 total. Its now at ~900 and doubling every ~10 days.
    • pgo 6y ago
      You got the facts completely wrong, India started the lockdown when total deaths were just 10 ! Source: https://www.covid19india.org/ https://www.covid19india.org/
      • carlsborg 6y ago
        Right. My bad. I was looking at the lockdown extension date sorry.
  • pmachinery 6y ago
    The TL;DR is in the final sentence: "we don't know". So many keystrokes and clicked bait on something nobody has any concrete insight into.
  • notahacker 6y ago
    The entire gist of the article isn't "it can't be true they're hiding something", it's "if statistics in the West are underreported which they likely are, why on earth would one believe they're not underreported in a country with far more limited access to medical care for much of the population where deaths from respiratory diseases are far more commonplace in normal times" India's lockdown started the day after the UK, and whilst undoubtedly the government has taken some strong measures to make the lockdown viable, it also faced unique challenges like significant parts of the urban poor population attempting to return home to families in their villages. Of course, despite being later than Western lockdowns chronologically, India's lockdown was earlier with respect to the known spread of the disease, but that in itself is a phenomena worthy of explanation.
    • i_have_to_speak 6y ago
      When New York went in to lockdown, it had ~7000 cases (20th March) [1] When UK went in to lockdown, it had 6700 cases. (23rd March) [2] When India went in to lockdown, it had 657 cases. (25th March) [2] [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/20/politics/new-york-workforce-stay-home/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/20/politics/new-york-workfor... [2] https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
      • adrianN 6y ago
        Comparing cases is pretty meaningless if you don't also compare test rates.
        • pgo 6y ago
          There is no good metric for comparing test rates as well, tests per million makes no sense when a lot of states within the country have almost zero cases. India's less than 5% positive ratio on tests even in hotspot regions do not indicate a massive lack of testing.
        • chosenbreed37 6y ago
          > Comparing cases is pretty meaningless if you don't also compare test rates. True. I'd argue that there are other factors such as demographics, time elapsed since first cases, etc. But I guess it's hard not to. Specially for media needing to fill column inches or otherwise capture our attention :-) It should be possible to simply look at numbers and draw any conclusions but it seems to be very difficult for human beings to do that. We feel the need create a narrative around and find an explanation for our observations.
  • thaway757383884 6y ago
    I flew from India to the US in early February (2nd week). Indian airports were doing thermal checks on passengers (using tech that had been installed during the Zika virus scare a few years back, I believe). The newspapers also had info about how anyone found with elevated temperatures were being asked to self quarantine, and the police was also following up. The US had, absolutely nothing. Nada. Before the flight I was afraid that entering the US would be difficult, but it was clear (and it remained this way for over a month), that if anything, entering India, if not difficult, would actually involve checks, something that was non existent in US ports. Further, and I don’t know if this is mentioned, the flight into India involved the cabin crew spraying some sort of pest control spray in the cabins before we landed. They mentioned it was due to regulations. Considering SARS-COV-2 has been found to have been easily killed (within minutes) of exposure to common disinfectants, could this spray have greatly minimized the virus entering the country, on baggage’s and clothing, etc?
    • unicornfinder 6y ago
      To be fair with the disinfectant that's been the case with India for years - I went in 2016 and they were doing it then as well.
      • callmeal 6y ago
        They started doing it after SARS-COV-1 back in 2002. The rest of the world actually respects intelligence and science (so far) but unfortunately in India it looks like the Fox-News/AM-Radio playbook is starting to win.
      • eric_b 6y ago
        Yep, since 2014 at least. I always assumed it was some kind of insecticide/pesticide? Is it just a disinfectant?
        • _-___________-_ 6y ago
          It's an insecticide. It's common on routes to/from a number of countries.
  • JPKab 6y ago
    I agree with you. The condescending tone by Western media towards India is awful and disgusting. The reality is probably that it's a combination of doing the lockdown well and the disease being far less deadly than initially thought due to very high asymptomatic infection rates. The latter is an emerging fact that the media here are in denial over. Therefore, they think India must be undercounting or something else. Awful and insulting. BTW, in regards to US, the lockdowns here worked. NYC was the only place in the entire country that ended up getting hit bad. The rest of the nation has not been hit anywhere approaching what was predicted by models which took into account lockdowns. Outside of NYC, US statistics match Germany.
    • rovolo 6y ago
      NYC certainly got hit bad, but I wouldn't say it's the only badly hit city. Here is deaths/total pop for some other cities >1mil population which I would also call "hit hard". NYC: 1.07‰ New Orleans: 0.65‰ Detroit: 0.60‰ Boston: 0.44‰ Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/03/upshot/coronavirus-metro-area-tracker.html#metro-maps https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/03/upshot/corona...
      • legolas2412 6y ago
        I think you're off by a factor of 10 in your numbers
        • rovolo 6y ago
          I'm using the per-mille (‰) rather than per-cent (%) symbol. Sorry for the confusion, but it's a more convenient unit for these quantities. This is how it'd look in percentages: NYC: 0.107% New Orleans: 0.065% Detroit: 0.060% Boston: 0.044% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_mille https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_mille
          • legolas2412 6y ago
            Ahh, today i learned
  • misja111 6y ago
    This is something that has really struck me during the Corona crisis: the misplaced Western believe of superiority towards Asian countries. I am European and I feel embarrassed about how much arrogance is displayed by some people and governments. It started already in the beginning, when the virus was spreading rapidly in China. Reports about the failing Chinese authority were all over the place, but nobody seemed to worry that when the virus would eventually reach Europe, we would be in trouble as well. After all how could we, with our superior health system and our governments that would react quickly and rationally on such a trivial threat as this. When the virus had reached Europe, it had already reached South Korea and Taiwan as well. These countries had learned from the earlier SARS outbreak how to deal with it and thoroughly tested everyone that could possibly have the virus, symptoms or not. The reaction I saw in the media was mostly about the breach in privacy that these measures brought. Surely this was not something that we, as enlightened Western societies, would want. And anyway, what were we frightened of. This virus could never spread so fast in Europe as it did in China, because .. Well because of what actually. Now that the pandemic has wrecked havoc in the entire Western world and most people are realising that a strategy of first constraining the virus (like in Wuhan) and then testing everybody to contain in (like in South Korea) is the only realistic way to deal with it, one might think that a bit of humbleness towards Asia would be in place. Think again. What we're seeing more and more instead is denial. Investigations are started if the Covid virus was manifactured in a laboratory in Wuhan for instance.
    • gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
      China’s first response to doctors reporting the virus was to send police to them and shut them up. I’ll gladly believe I live in a better country.
      • mikem170 6y ago
        I had the impression, based on news articles at the time, that local officials were behind the initial coverup in Wuhan, lasting until national officials rectified the situation.
        • 6y ago
  • vbezhenar 6y ago
    I live in Kazakhstan and so far out country seems to be doing a right thing. We're heavily quarantined and I don't think that states are hiding anything. Economy implications of such a lockdown probably will be harsh, but that's a different thing. There was ill person in the building I'm living in and now entire building section just closed, nobody can go out and regular desinfections are performed (I don't think that they make any sense, but whatever). So I'm absolutely sure that Kazakhstan is doing better than many European countries and for sure better than US. May be our government is not the most democratic one out there, but they care about citizens and their tight grip over country allows them to make an unpopular but effective decisions. Some western people just think that they are strictly superior everywhere to the developing countries. That might be true in a lot of areas, but it's not an universal truth.
    • ignoramous 6y ago
      > Some western people just think that they are strictly superior everywhere to the developing countries. The so-called western people, I'd argue, have the right mindset. I agree governments capable of draconian measures tend to do well when such behaviour control is desirable at a nationwide scale. That doesn't mean it is the only solution or even the best one. I personally would pretty much prefer prevention, absent which, a measured, well thought-out, least disruptive policy around epidemics (I am looking at you South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam). Curtailing liberties, harsher restrictions, oppressive policing, regressive policies don't really fill me up with any sort of confidence. In fact, I worry that the citizens that are not just in acceptance of such a response, but in appraisal of it, are in for a grim reality-check when another unrest, epidemic or otherwise, rears its ugly head.
      • sbmthakur 6y ago
        South Korean government did have strong laws on their side, some of which can be considered as draconian by American standards[1]. Considering behaviour of American population to the lax government measures, I guess strong laws/measures are the way to go. 1. https://www.lawfareblog.com/lessons-america-how-south-korean-authorities-used-law-fight-coronavirus https://www.lawfareblog.com/lessons-america-how-south-korean...
  • Bhilai 6y ago
    Came here to say this. When compared to the Western world, India did fare well and its not a mystery. Though the lock-downs were brutal for many Indians, they were strictly implemented and most people had the sense to follow the procedures. No denying that economic repercussions will be brutal as well but not many lives were lost. In my hometown, there isn't a single active case of COVID19 and its essentially a "green zone" now with most things returning back to normal. Local Police did a phenomenal job contact tracing and enforcing the lock-down. I wonder if life in USA would have gone back to normal by now if there was a better response and acceptance of the impending crisis. I am glad they don't have Fox news in India.
    • ignoramous 6y ago
      The Police, despite their shortcomings and inspite of their over-zealousness, must be commended. They really did show up for their country at the time of utmost need.
• astatine 6y ago
  It is mainly with a sense of relief (rather than disbelief) that I watch the progression of numbers daily. The lockdown was early and quite stringent and has definitely made a difference. The most stringent lockdown has little chance of being executed effectively in India and there are innumerable cases of people cheerfully ignoring or doing so in desperation. Regardless, the awareness of COVID-19 is extremely high, probably more than any other single critical disease that afflicts us. This should have made a significant difference in influencing the behaviour of the majority. Tests are for the most part only for the symptomatic or with known contact, if asymptomatic. Almost certainly infection cases will be much, much higher. But fatalities are tough to ignore. In today's environment even a death unrelated to COVID causes consternation amongst neighbours and gets known widely. I take that to mean that the fatalities are probably close enough to reality. And that's unbelievably good and I can only hope that it doesn't get bad in the near future.
  • kumarvvr 6y ago
    Yup, there is a very large percentage of the population, even in rural areas, that are awareof the danger posed. Politicians, including the PM have clearly and multiple times explained their actions in a very clear and lucid language. Stateministers also have conveyed the same in a similar manner. There was no tolerance on stupid questions from the beginning, and a huge emphasis has been put on scientists amd healthcare experts. Most of the experts also did not talk publicly, but advised the politicians.
    • astatine 6y ago
      True. There has fortunately been no dithering or mixed messages. The clarity and consistency of the messaging has probably saved India.
• newyankee 6y ago
  While the reported deaths may be low, the 'they are hiding something' attitude is not helpful. India cannot do the level of testing that western countries do due to the humongous population. I can very well assure you in India you cannot hide mass deaths like China. A distant relative died of cardiac arrest and the measures were so strict that in a highly social society where paying respects to a deceased is considered a basic duty, only 5 close people were allowed. The body was directly cremated by specially appointed staff at the hospital. While i am worried about the fact that social distancing is difficult to implement in India what has helped so far are the following measures: 1. Extremely strict lockdown - i have not gotten out of my home in more than a month, thankfully essential workers keep the essential supplies running. 2. I think BCG vaccination especially amongst young folks makes a difference and i think the immunity is higher amongst Indians (hypothesis) 3. Summer heat (hypothesis) 4. India had very early measures towards screening people coming from other countries since Jan which helped. The cases and deaths will undoubtedly increase, however the question i have a reasonable answer to is : Do you think the best and timely measures were taken given the constraints ? Undoubtedly yes. Ever since the outbreak happened the usual suspects have been churning out article after article about the low numbers and it seems like some of the vested interests were expecting us to lead the world in deaths instead of EU and US. For a second the folks need to commend the work done and what was done correctly. The sacrifice of millions of Indians who are following the lockdown diligently. As a country with limited infrastructure we cannot work without social distancing, yet somehow we have survived through this period, which is undoubtedly a miracle. This has flattened the curve and the overworked healthcare professionals have a difficult year or 2 ahead of them to ensure the no of actively infected remains manageable.
  • blackrock 6y ago
    > I can very well assure you in India you cannot hide mass deaths like China. LOL.. What happens internally in India, is not my concern. But to say this, is disingenuous. Don’t you have a little Muslim rebellion going on over there? With intense media and Internet blackouts? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8256349/Indias-Muslims-bear-brunt-crisis-blamed-government.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8256349/Indias-Musl... https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/india-restores-internet-kashmir-7-months-blackout-200305053858356.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/india-restores-intern...
• Cantbekhan 6y ago
  Is there any scientific/medical feedback on India's official approach to give prophylaxis hydroxychloroquine to medical personnel and contacts of infected people? Could it be that this policy had some positive impact? https://www.mohfw.gov.in/pdf/AdvisoryontheuseofHydroxychloroquinasprophylaxisforSARSCoV2infection.pdf https://www.mohfw.gov.in/pdf/AdvisoryontheuseofHydroxychloro... https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30313-3/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...
  • sseth 6y ago
    ICMR doctor R Ganga Ketkar had made the statement on Apr 11 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP_ta25JcbU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP_ta25JcbU) that this is under study and at this point is not a recommended treatment. Subsequently a recent study in the US has said that it has no positive effect. Seems to be a dead end at the moment.
• diminish 6y ago
  Unfortunately UK government and Boris Johnson failed to take the pandemic seriously. This include BBC too. While the world was watching the kingdom with fear and awe, the establishment had a wandering attention.
  • throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    Agreed re. Boris (but not about the BBC). Boris made easy decisions, not the right ones. He is expedient rather than well-judging, and he was too willing to treat politics as a game of 2 sides rather than trying to unify. Maybe he can learn from this.
• asicsp 6y ago
  on the other hand, at least one newspaper in India has an article [1] titled: "India's coronavirus infection rates are among the highest in Asia" we are under lockdown for more than a month now, and in my state, there's even stricter lockdown for past few days (not even groceries/vegetable shops are open, supplies provided to some extent via government operated mobile vending, door deliveries, etc) [1] https://www.thehindu.com/data/indias-coronavirus-infection-rates-are-among-the-highest-in-asia/article31440360.ece https://www.thehindu.com/data/indias-coronavirus-infection-r...
  • oefrha 6y ago
    Whoever wrote that article apparently has no idea what “rate” means, as they were comparing total case and death counts: > India is among the four Asian countries with at least 25,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 800 related deaths as of April 26. China, Turkey and Iran are the other three. India and China each has one fifth of world’s population ffs. The infection rate in each is tiny.
    • asicsp 6y ago
      yeah, seems like a mixed bag with the wrong conclusion they show the graphs, from which one can infer whether the infection is increasing/decreasing but the top-5 conclusion seems to be based on total cases, which is probably not the case if rate is considered
• garyclarke27 6y ago
  Poor article, not even a single mention of the most likely reason for low death rate (apart from young population), the weather! Strong Sun (UV light) and high humidity quickly kills the virus. Warm countries like Thailand - despite millions of tourists from Wuhan - have low death rates. In Spain cold Madrid was affected much worse than sunnier south. Summer will soon rapidly kill of the virus in southern Europe.
  • osobo 6y ago
    And then summer ends and fall begins and we start all over again. Only longer, this time.
  • mkl 6y ago
    From the article: "Yet others talk about the possibilities of the presence of a less virulent strain of the virus in India, along with the possibility that its hot weather was diminishing the contagion. Both these claims are not backed by any evidence."
    • JackFr 6y ago
      Yeah. And yet... - The statistics indicate the contagion is diminished. - No one knows why. - Someone posits a plausible explanation of an effect seen in some (but not all) similar viruses. - Explanation is dismissed without consideration, and the working theory us that the statistics are wrong.
    • tomhoward 6y ago
      > "Both these claims are not backed by any evidence" There is evidence for the weather claim, but it's complicated by other factors. Multiple studies [1] have observed a correlation between weather/UV and severity of outbreak. Wuhan, Milan, Madrid, Qom, UK, Korea and Northern USA have all fit a comparable weather profile during their outbreaks. The problem is that this virus seems to be more durable/resilient than other seasonal viruses (flu, common cold), and even in hot climates, many people still spend a lot of time congregated in air conditioned office/residential buildings, shopping centres, public transportation systems, etc. So it's true that hot weather alone is not enough to end an outbreak. But it can reduce the extent/severity, and the observed evidence seems to bear that out. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/c8ed3692-6db3-11ea-9bca-bf503995cd6f https://www.ft.com/content/c8ed3692-6db3-11ea-9bca-bf503995c...
• ramraj07 6y ago
  I can give some ground level information. I live in a very densely populated street (total length is just two hundred meters, my guess is at least a thousand people live here). No one is dying here without others noticing. Further, there's a great amount of scrutiny into whether anyone's sick (see the reports of doctors getting beaten up even by the cops). As far as I know, no one has died in this street in a month. The ambulance hasn't entered the street either. So unless there's a great conspiracy which most of us in the street are unaware, there really doesn't seem to be that many deaths. In fact the death rate is lower than normal, when people normally die, the first ritual is the blowing of a very loud horn in front of their house for an entire day. Haven't heard that in weeks. I live in the middle of the fifth biggest city in the country as well. It's likely many people in the street already have this but it's very unlikely that many or any have died from covid. For reference, official disease tally for my city is now 570 cases.
  • gspr 6y ago
    > Further, there's a great amount of scrutiny into whether anyone's sick (see the reports of doctors getting beaten up even by the cops). What? Why are doctors being beaten up? I don't understand.
    • pgo 6y ago
      Few isolated incidents mostly in slum areas where rumors spread of a government conspiracy of targeting muslims. This government's anti-minority image did not help. Source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/assam-mla-held-for-spreading-false-covid-19-info-police/story-chZkNRC5WHm6GF5eM1fkoM.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/assam-mla-held-for...
    • mirimir 6y ago
      Doctors have a bad reputation in Pakistan, given one's role in OBL's murder. And perhaps, more generally, among some Muslim populations. I'm not arguing that it's justified, by the way. Or that it's a majority opinion. Just that it exists.
      • 6y ago
• manojlds 6y ago
  Anecdotally I know ex-colleagues who got Covid19 in the US and one of them has died. I literally know of no one who is sick, much less with covid19, here in India in my friend circle, in my family circle and across the 1000+ employee company I work in. Either there's asymptomatic sick in my circle or no one has it. Granted I am anxious, and hope things don't get worse, but international media has been pathetic on reporting this. I like the work that local The Print is doing. Very informative reporting from them - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuyRsHZILrU7ZDIAbGASHdA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuyRsHZILrU7ZDIAbGASHdA Here's a good example and relevant to this discussion - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWuRA_2by-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWuRA_2by-Q
  • pastelsky 6y ago
    Print's reporting has been a mixed bag. For eg, the last video compares deaths vs testing in a poor country like Bolivia — situated many miles away from global hotspots to that of Belgium's — one of Europe's headquarters. It seems to suggest that increase in testing and quick isolation is somewhat of a "subjective" factor and doesn't help India. This, completely disregarding factors like geography, demographics, Bolivia's first case landing a month after Belgium's, and Belgium being one of the few countries in Europe to actually count non-hospital deaths and more. There's some confirmation bias here.
    • manojlds 6y ago
      True, but same is applicable to India. India shouldn't have to test more just because US has to.
      • pastelsky 6y ago
        I don't think that was ever the argument. Increased testing has been recommended by the WHO, has noticeably helped prevent a bigger outbreak impact in South Korea & Germany and quick isolation makes a lot of sense for a disease that is asymptomatic in most patients.
  • rootusrootus 6y ago
• fellow_colleger 6y ago
  So, the conclusion of the article is “we know that we don't know”? One has to wonder, what is the point of publishing something useless like this, unless the author is trying to imply something completely different in the subtext.
• Gatsky 6y ago
  I hope the reason is that Indians are intrinsically resistant to SARS-CoV-2, that would be a big relief.
  • dogma1138 6y ago
    Based on how many people of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent are dying in the UK there is no indication that people form the Indian subcontinent have some genetic resiliency or immunity to the virus.
    • shalmanese 6y ago
      Also, how quickly the cases have been spreading through Singaporean's Foreign Worker Dormitories. I believe at some point, there were more Bangladeshis confirmed infected in Singapore than in Bangladesh.
    • lottin 6y ago
      Resistance doesn't have to be genetic, it could be acquired through exposure to pathogens.
      • dogma1138 6y ago
        SARS and MERS did not provide immunity against each other nor against SARS2. There is no indication that other common coronavirus infections such as those that cause 10-30% of common cold cases world wide provide any immunity to the current virus. Also given the sheer size of India it’s unlikely that there would be a pathogen that provides immunity on this scale that would not have been identified previously since it would end up causing complications and deaths in some infections even if at much lower rates than previous epidemics. If it also managed to spread across India It would’ve also spread worldwide. Lastly like someone else mentioned migrants native to the region where hit pretty hard everywhere else.
    • sn41 6y ago
      Indian, living in India presently, who lived in the US for almost a decade. I can relate a strange experience: I was never severely bedridden by flu or viral fever in India. I caught the flu during my stay in the US one February. I was so weak I could not even sit up in a chair for more than 15 minutes, I would doze off. I was in my bed for practically 5 days, was weak for a couple of weeks afterwards. I am back in India for a decade, never had such an experience again. As you say, genetics is definitely not the reason for immunity or lower death rates. But I wonder whether human immunity is much lower coming out of the winter. India does not have severe subzero celsius winter except in the hills.
• buboard 6y ago
  They dont even mention other options such as previous vaccinations, cross effects from other drugs, antibodies from other coronaviruses , humidity/sunlight etc. "They must be hiding something" means they either believe it's a conspiracy, or is a borderline racist attitude
• pvaldes 6y ago
  About relative low death counts in some Asian countries by comparison with Europe or America, we must take in mind that Asian people could had been exposed in the past to a virus of Asian origin (or to a relatively similar virus strain), so they could have developed some immunity previously. I would want to include in the discussion (and this is just my opinion and wild speculation by my part, not more, not less) the spring wildfires around Chernobyl area also in 2020. I wonder if ashes in the atmosphere are being also a hidden source of respiratory problems for Europe than nobody is taking in mind. Could explain the strange pattern of people that has recovered from the disease but somehow falls ill again and starts coughing again and again in waves, malaria style. I remember similar massive coughs in all Europe in 2015 (if I'm not wrong) exactly at the same time that Russian and Ukrainian armies were burning forests in the North of Ukranie. I can be wrong, but there is not much to lose by researching that except time, and we have a lot currently. If we seen that spikes in hospital admissions match the burning periods and the wind direction plus a reasonable delay to reach the areas we could do further research.
  • dennis_jeeves 6y ago
    I can agree with you about the burning forests. Looking at the Spanish flu - it looks that if one were to account for famine, malnutrition, unsanitary conditions and other facts, it seems nothing out of the ordinary.
• superasn 6y ago
  I generally have a very poor opinion of the govt officials in my country owing to some very bad past experiences in India. But this time I too was pleasantly surprised. My friend lives in a very populated area in Delhi called Tilak nagar and he told me in feb end iirc that the house opposite his has a huge plaque on it that says *Quarantine, this house has a covid patient" put on by police. This was the time when nobody knew how serious this thing was. So yeah it does seem they got some things right too this time.
  • ramshanker 6y ago
    Similar in my Apartment. An air hostess got quarantined for 14 days in her house with a big poster on outside door “ Flat under Quarantine “. It was not Red colour because it was not confirmed case. So basically National Disaster Mechanism are quite well planned and implemented.
• nnq 6y ago
  A better question from everyone outside the US: what the flying f is with the huuuuuge (accounting for estimated no. of infected and other factors) number of deaths in the USA??!!?! I mean, the US is (a) a developed country with modern health-care, (b) there is no common 'old parents living in same home with some of the adult children' situation you have in Italy + Eastern Europe, (c) there are no norms of common physical contact like 'kissing on meeting' (see France, Italy, northern Romania etc.), (d) the population is generally very dispersed (compare US density with areas of Western Europe or China) and (e) there is prevalent use of personal cars instead of public transport (as opposed to Western Europe and China, again), which should further diminish transmission. US stats look worrying for everyone on Earth, it almost looks like a wild difference in viral strains or some other important but unknown factor.
  • mparramon 6y ago
    Obesity?
  • Johnjonjoan 6y ago
    Whilst I agree the USA has a lower population density than most of the world it is not exactly true. This figure assumes everyone is equally spread out. However many inhabitants of the USA live in cities therefore population density is much higher. The same thing happens in Spain which goes from one of the least dense countries in Europe to one of the most dense looking at it in these different ways. The USA has a large population and I assume this is why you think the numbers are huge. Deaths per thousand are around a half of the UK and less than a third of Italy and Spain. In not very worried by US stats they seem fairly similar to elsewhere in the world. What I'm worried about is that it seems like American politicians, media, people think they are much further along infection than they are. Edit - typo
    • sharatvir 6y ago
      Not only is the population large, a lot of people are large as well. Obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular health are huge factors in covid-19 mortality.
  • 6y ago
• kranner 6y ago
  In the state of India that I live in, at least three people have died in the hospital of very Covid-19-like symptoms, but they were not counted as Covid-19 deaths. Two of double pneumonia, both with travel history, but their tests came up negative. They were both healthy until very recently. One had arrived from the US, where the chances of community-acquiring-pneumonia are low as I gather. One of cardiac arrest, but AFAIK she wasn't tested because she had no travel history.
  • danparsonson 6y ago
    We shouldn't be including deaths in the Covid-19 total just because they involve similar symptoms. Lots of other problems cause pneumonia and cardiac arrest, and you said yourself that the pneumonia patients tested negative. Apparently healthy people die suddenly all the time, sadly.
    • kranner 6y ago
      The RT-PCR test apparently has a very high false negative rate; I've read up to 30% or even 40%. Also, they had all the other symptoms as well including fever and shortness of breath. One arrived in India with respiratory distress. The other fell ill a week after visiting a Covid hotspot -- Mumbai -- which he managed to visit despite a travel ban because he was a hotshot politician.
      • ksk 6y ago
        Where did you read that? Was it a reputable source that cited peer-reviewed data? We use RT-PCR every single day at our company (vaccine development) and we couldn't do our jobs if it performed so abysmally. The RT-PCR is the gold standard when it comes to detection.
        • kranner 6y ago
          https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/radiol.2020200432 https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/radiol.2020200432 Sorry, I should have qualified that fully. I meant clinical sensitivity for RT-PCR for SARS-CoV-2 for samples drawn from throat swabs, specifically. I know that my local hospital is only taking throat swabs, not nasal swabs; and all the press photos I've seen for testing in India is of throat swabs.
• dingo_bat 6y ago
  Another biased hit-piece by BBC against India. The same BBC published a glowing love letter to Jack Ma, ignoring the fact that China's secretive and callous approach is what has put us in this situation.
• thbr99 6y ago
  BBC is a known for its India bashing. This article has no depth and is conjuring up some kind of conspiracy theory. HN quality is going down the drain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC
  • screye 6y ago
    The BBC is known to write about ex-colonies with a certain level of contempt. There is a thinly veiled nostalgia about British superiority and to an extent still consider the subcontinent to be some sort of 'unfinished work' that still requires 'civilizing'. I have noticed a similar sentiment among French and Belgian people about their colonies, but I haven't read enough of their media or politics to know how pervasive it is.
    • thbr99 6y ago
      Françafrique - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Françafrique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Françafrique
• arihant 6y ago
  This should not be a mystery at all. India locked down entire country (no state rights in Epidemics laws), despite federal structure. Very few things can be bought, even Amazon is only delivering "essentials." But more importantly, India has been contact tracing like a greedy algorithm on steroids since case #1. There was a positive case in a condo nearby mine. The entire condominium building and adjacent locality is sealed. Not a lockdown, sealed. Nobody in, nobody out. The authorities spent over 9 hours interviewing all family members, neighbors, and friends of the infected for contact tracing. Every contact is being monitored, with police showing up randomly to make sure of no symptoms and adherence to home quarantine. People are self policing mainly to avoid police, but they are self policing each other because nobody wants their buildings sealed. It really is working, I see people unwilling to hand over their credit cards in shops insisting to tap to avoid infections. In my state, there are only 85 active infections, only 2 are residents of my city, and even then I'm given gloves and sanitizer when I enter minimarts, with only 10 minute allowance to go and shop with maximum 4 shoppers allowed inside. Edit: It becomes a big news when a positive case is found nearby. There is a distributed effort of volunteers to monitor infections (http://covid19india.org http://covid19india.org). There is no way government can lie about numbers.
  • mesaframe 6y ago
    >India has been contact tracing like a greedy algorithm on steroids since case #1. Care to provide source? >People are self policing mainly to avoid police, but they are self policing each other because nobody wants their buildings sealed. I have seen videos of people violating lockdown without fear. >There are only 85 active infections 85 infections which were caught.
    • petilon 6y ago
      > Care to provide source? There is some info here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/world/asia/india-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/world/asia/india-coronavi... The US is #1 in infections for a reason: we are doing it wrong.
      • 6y ago
• screye 6y ago
  Rant Alert ! My response will come off as ranty, because I am a bit annoyed. India takes strong and well executed action on lockdown. People in the West continue to loiter in the streets. ( I see it here in Boston at least, one of US's hot spots). West be like, "India's low death number is a mystery" At this point, it almost sounds like the western media is mourning the lack of deaths in India. As though to say, "there is no way a "shithole country" can ever be well prepared for a pandemic. Hopefully India gets worse, so we can tend to our wounds by saying that at least it isn't as bad as it's in India." When a lockdown works wonders in China or Korea -> "Swift response, responsible Govt. India does the same, and it's still a mystery. Some points * India has the world's most drastic lockdown in order. More stringent than China at their COVID peak. * Indian public health is at the very least experienced, (I think competent as well, but opinions there may vary) with national epidemics. * Indians know what mortality feels like. <- My opinion, but the west simply doesn't fear death the same way. For good reason, but in India a silent biological killer of millions is something people intuitively understand. In part due to wounds of Plague, TB, Aids, Malaria and Polio, all being quite fresh in memory. * More fact, Indians also know what national emergencies and curfews feels like. We have had a few in the last few decades, and some have been nearly as drastic. * India relied strongly on ICMR (it's medical research body) over WHO or the US's recommendations. That included using funding to push a lockdown far earlier into the spread than other nations, consistently recommending masks and contact tracing. On the other hand, testing and ventilator recommendations were not taken and it has worked. The death rate of COVID patients on ventilators is 88%. It is less a life saving device and more an expensive pyre. India has also been smart about running really intelligent statistical tests instead of mass testing. They randomly tested people coming in reporting pneumonia symptoms, they tested randomly sampled population and closely tracked the death rate, instead of spending 100s of millions on testing everyone. (esp. when everyone is 1 billion people) Additionally if high rates of testing only serve to better provide recommendations on distancing, mask wear and lockdowns, then India has jumped to stringent action already, making high rates of testing rather meaningless. (2 week delayed death number spikes are far more reliable for longer term decision making such as when to restart the economy) (also, even more controversial, it doesn't help that the Indian intellectual and political left (esp. the Luthiens Delhi crowd), despises the current government, and would rather evangelize and believe in its incompetence, ever get caught giving it credit where it is due. I say this as someone who would be considered a proper social democrat in the US and is not a fan of the current US or Indian Govt.) Is it possible that there are other reasons for why India has low Covid-19 death rates ? -> Of course it is possible. But, the pigheaded quest of the western media to find an alternative "godsent" reason to keep believing that India has an incompetent public health infrastructure is honestly quite appalling.
• signal11 6y ago
  It's not just COVID-19 deaths, raw death numbers (as measured by death certificates, you cannot cremate/bury people without one) are down as well -- this report has some evidence, including lower business in at crematoriums[1]. This is likely due to the very stringent lockdown in India, and the somewhat underrated fact that traffic collisions and accidents kill huge numbers of people every day in India. That said, while lower death rates (India's seem to be about half of the world's death rate) are to be celebrated, there are confounding factors. 1) The reported death count are mostly hospital deaths only. Home deaths aren't counted. 2) As the article notes, mis-diagnosing is a problem especially outside hospitals. But if there's something that genuinely is reducing the death rate, then that's obviously a huge opportunity to study and learn from. [1] https://www.livemint.com/news/india/india-s-lower-death-rates-seem-to-defy-global-coronavirus-trend-11587723007584.html https://www.livemint.com/news/india/india-s-lower-death-rate...
  • kumarvvr 6y ago
    IIRC, during the lockdown, every death is to be notified to the authorities.
    • gindely 6y ago
      Is that not normally the case? The pp says that every burial or cremation requires a death certificate, and who else but the authorities has the right to issue a death certificate?
      • kumarvvr 6y ago
        The process for getting a death certificate usually takes a couple of weeks to a month or so. And normally, for natural deaths, there is nothing to be reported to anyone. But during lockdown, reporting is to be done immediately.
• kumarvvr 6y ago
  Ground Report : I live in one of the major cities. Lockdown is reasonably well ensured. Our State Chief Minister was particularly vigilant and people are very alert. There is not much misinformation in the media. Basically, everyone has taken it seriously and is vigilant. I also hear that those who took TB vaccine are more immune, and that is practically most of the younger and middle aged people in the country.
• YetAnotherNick 6y ago
  India's median age is 28.1, US' is 38.1, Spain's is 42.7 and Italy's is 45.5.
  • buboard 6y ago
    the average life expectancy (especially for males) is relevant here. India's at 70 yo, while UK is 80
• oxymoran 6y ago
  Maybe it’s because Americans are fat. Especially poor Americans who subsist on fast food and other junk. My guess would be that Indians in poverty are more likely starving than diabetic. Starving has its own health risks obviously, but being fat enough to impede your breathing isn’t one of them.
  • danans 6y ago
    Obesity affects fatality rates, not infection rates, due to greater chance of respiratory obstruction in advanced cases of the disease. It appears that infection rates in India are low at the moment. It's not entirely clear why, but it could be a combination of hot weather, their nationally imposed lockdown, and lack of testing.
• muktabh 6y ago
  Unlike what this article tries to subtly hint, there is no massive conspiracy theory stuff going on here. There are too many people in India (with smartphones and cameras and 3G/4G internet) to pull off anything covert. No one here views this as mystery but as a result of country's discipline in lockdown till now. The country imposed an early screening and tight lockdown and people followed it well till now.
  • interestica 6y ago
    > Unlike what this article tries to subtly hint, there is no massive conspiracy theory stuff going on here. There are too many people in India (with smartphones and cameras and 3G/4G internet) to pull off anything covert. So you're saying there's no 5G? Jokes aside, I would love a breakdown of all different hypotheses here and to revisit them in one year. (Eg therapies, heat/humidity effects, lockdown severity, lockdown timing, genetic factors, strain variations, etc)
• sdiq 6y ago
  I am not seeing the theory of Vitamin D deficiency being highly correlated with severe outcomes from Covid-19 infections being suggested in the article. Please see links below for this theory: 1) https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1548/rr-6 https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1548/rr-6 2) https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-21211/v1 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-21211/v1 3) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3585561 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3585561
• nromiun 6y ago
  No news channel is unbiased these days but I don't know of any other news source that has as much criticism as BBC. They have a long history[1] of spreading misinformation and hate aginst many countries (specially India). 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC
  • danparsonson 6y ago
    Never heard of Fox News?
• rataata_jr 6y ago
  Hey, guys I'm from India. There is a very strict lock down here. It has been there for a long time now. My city (Bangalore) did the lockdown a bit early. Like one more comment down this thread, there will be really loud horns in front of houses. That has not been going on around here.
• kylehotchkiss 6y ago
  I’m a (foreign) American citizen staying in India and happened to arrive here a few days before lockdown started. I don’t understand how this is a mystery: India quickly locked down the entire country and going outdoors was consistently punishable by police hitting people with sticks (thankfully it seems like the brutality has eased up since the start and police are doing things like making people write sorry on the beach or do squats instead) People are taking the virus and situation seriously, without an unusual spike in fake news. You can’t even order anything outside a narrowly defined “essentials” category online. Thankfully food delivery is opened up. To all the Indians here who are in the same situation, phew, I understand your pain. Hopefully this next extension is the last one and then it’ll be more limited to hotspots: and we will all be able to order from amazon again soon. I also hope the economy can open quickly and smoothly when the time comes.
  • vbezhenar 6y ago
    Did you see police beating people yourself? I have a suspicion that it was made just for camera to scare people.
    • deadalus 6y ago
      ‘Beaten’ for stepping out for biscuits, UP teen dies 'Eyewitnesses said the cops beat Rizwan with batons and rifle butts' https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/coronavirus-lockdown-beaten-for-stepping-out-for-biscuits-uttar-pradesh-teen-dies/cid/1766154 https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/coronavirus-lockdown-be...
    • chrismorgan 6y ago
      I have heard first-hand reports from people that saw a little of it. Police beating people with lathis happened in many places all across the country, where people were insisting on breaking curfew, until people got the message. It’s also not terribly uncommon for the police to use such measures, especially where curfews are involved. I see no reason to doubt that it has been happening.
    • viklove 6y ago
      In India there's never a shortage of people (police or civilians) beating each other with sticks. Happened long before COVID and will continue long after.
• arikrak 6y ago
  Maybe the warmer more humid weather in India combined with the measures they took against the virus delayed the spread enough that the number of deaths are lower.
• yters 6y ago
  Most countries in the tropics and southern henisphere are seeing low death rates regardless of how they handle the outbreak. Most likely heat stops covid-19, just like the cold. You can verify this by graphing death rates against latitude.
• ignoramous 6y ago
  Germany has suspiciously lower death rates, too... And that's down to the superior healthcare infrastructure there? I was wondering if something similar was happening in India. I was expecting to read about it more from a therapeutic treatment point of view-- Is India doing anything differently that results in higher recovery and lower death rates?
  • MandieD 6y ago
    Germany tested more heavily than neighbors earlier on, so probably discovered a higher proportion of "mild" cases. Also, Germany does have a superior healthcare infrastructure in some ways compared to the other big EU countries: in 2012, it had about 2.5 times as many ICU beds per capita as Italy, France and Spain, and 4.5 times that of the UK [1], along with more hospital beds overall [2]. The US had somewhat more ICU beds per capita than Germany, but only about a third of the hospital beds in general, so ICU beds are certainly not the only explanation for why it hasn't been quite as bad here. As important as healthcare infrastructure is, it's worthless to someone without financial access to it, either directly due to lacking insurance or indirectly due to fear of losing one's job due to absence. Extremely few people (but not zero) in Germany would be hesitant to seek treatment for Covid-19 due to either of those worries, compared with a large (and due to the unemployment situation, growing) portion of people in the US. Americans are being told that they won't get surprise bills for Covid-10 treatment, but I imagine more than a few have wondered how a visit to the emergency room would affect their finances if they turned out not to have it, and decided to tough it out a bit too long. So, if available healthcare infrastructure and individual financial access to that infrastructure are taken together, Germany looks to be ahead of both the other large EU countries and the US, all of which have suffered more deaths per capita these past few awful weeks. If some of the German states try to get "back to normal" too fast, though, this relatively good situation could change... [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/12/the-countries-with-the-most-critical-care-beds-per-capita-infographic/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/12/the-co... [2] https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/health_glance-2017-62-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/health_glance-2017-62-en https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/health_glance-2017-62-en...
  • rovolo 6y ago
• jatsek 6y ago
  There's a chance that climate is on the India's side here. "High Temperature and High Humidity Reduce the Transmission of COVID-19" https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3551767 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3551767
  • marcosdumay 6y ago
    Of all the large Brazilian cities, the one that is in a crisis due to the virus is the one with highest temperature and humidity.
  • SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
    There is a chance that in some regions of the world we have somewhat weaker strain of the virus.
• stevespang 6y ago
  Only 22% of deaths are officially reported in India . ..
• chrismorgan 6y ago
  I know of an old man who died last week in an area a short way out of Hyderabad. That area was a Red Zone (presumably due to COVID-19 cases near it), so movement in and out of the area was very much more restricted even than usual. A couple of days before he died, they tried taking him to hospital, but were told that the hospital had no doctors there that could help. Next day ditto. It was only hours before he died that they let him in at all. In this case there’s a fair probability that he would have died anyway (probable generic cause of death: old age), and there’s no reason to suspect any connection with COVID-19 in his death. But you can definitely have deaths indirectly caused by the coronavirus, because doctors are busy dealing with other things, or even can’t get to the hospital due to lockdown!
• rramadass 6y ago
  The article while making some valid points is full of insinuations. This is disingenuous. The main reason for the low death rates is the lock-down/quarantine in place. India did this very quickly and very comprehensively. I would never have believed that such a lock-down would be followed and enforced in India if i were not living through it. It would be interesting to see how quickly the slope changes once the lock-down is lifted. Other maybe contributing factors are; Sunlight & UV exposure, High Humidity, a healthy younger population, a better immune system (hygiene hypothesis) etc. Simply said, the "Developed Western Nations" dropped the ball on recognizing the threat and putting in counter-measures and are now paying the price.
  • standardUser 6y ago
    Most Western nations are doing fine. There's really just a dozen or so countries that have been hit hard, and even then the impact has been uneven within the hardest hit countries.
    • kumarvvr 6y ago
      Sorry, for 330 Million people, USA has had 60k deaths from C19 so far, whereas India has had about 1000 deaths in about 1300 Million people. The western Nations are doing abysmally.
      • standardUser 6y ago
        You ignored my comment to say what you wanted to say. Many Western nations are doing great. They are handling the pandemic very well and have less strict lockdowns than India.
        • sbmthakur 6y ago
          A stringent lockdown in India is not an option but a necessity considering the population. In fact, as others have pointed out, areas with confirmed cases are sealed with all movement in and out of it tightly restricted.
• g00s3_caLL_x2 6y ago
  I'd be really curious to see if cuisine and temperature play into this at all? I've read an article somewhere about how spices can have healthy benefits. I'm not sure how much of this is pseudo-science, but sounds neat. Harvard has an article on temperature but says 'may not' so, still a curiosity on my end. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/04/covid-19-may-not-go-away-in-warmer-weather-as-do-colds/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/04/covid-19-may-...
• known 6y ago
  Prior to Corona crisis One in four Indians were practising untouchability aka social distancing https://archive.vn/bEMTt https://archive.vn/bEMTt In Western countries people will lose Privacy in crisis. In India people lose human rights in crisis; Police will assault you for trivial reasons; https://twitter.com/search?q=%23PoliceViolence&src=typed_query https://twitter.com/search?q=%23PoliceViolence&src=typed_que... Distrust between Patients and Doctors due to Racism https://archive.vn/QkTja https://archive.vn/QkTja and Diversity aka Castes in India https://archive.vn/YXDP8 https://archive.vn/YXDP8 1st Corona virus case in India was detected on 30th January; Lock down was declared after 54 days i.e. on 24th March Check the impact https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global?f_country=India&l=clock https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global?f_country=India&l=clock While people are fighting Corona virus Modi regime quietly/covertly written off debt of Corrupt people https://archive.vn/N8GSh https://archive.vn/N8GSh Caste-wise list https://archive.vn/1X1Un https://archive.vn/1X1Un
• manishsharan 6y ago
  Minor nitpick on reporting : literally every person they quoted with Indian sounding names live and work outside of India. And the lone Indian source they quoted, Prof Reddy, was the only one who lived in India and he was the only one who was not skeptical of the numbers. Not one expert from India was used in the article,besides Prof. Reddy, which is a relatively open society.
  • kumarvvr 6y ago
    BBC and a myriad of British mainstream publications are decisively Anti India in their general narrative.
    • ra7 6y ago
      The NYT is also notorious for the same narrative building. Anyone who is serious about Indian news knows NYT, BBC et al report stories that are far away from ground realities.
      • throwawaysea 6y ago
        With respect to coverage of India, this is definitely true across center and left leaning media in Western countries these days. It has especially come about because the American progressive left has built their political coalition in alignment with Muslim/pro-Muslim groups, which has blinded them to a neutral view. I saw the John Oliver piece on Modi recently, and was shocked to hear how one sided it was from Indian colleagues.
  • lappet 6y ago
    Wow, I just noticed this after you pointed it out. I have learned to take news with a huge pinch of salt. Many of the "reputed" establishments fail miserably when covering India or China. If you are writing an opinion piece, fine. But whatever happened to nuance and covering multiple PoVs? I think with Covid it is really important for us to wait and watch and stop competing.
    • 6y ago
• j0hnM1st 6y ago
  There are mistakes in the article. To begin with the first case was reported 3 months ago and to be precise on Jan 30th. While its difficult to findout the strain of the virus, the first patient was a medical student returned Wuahn.
• Syzygies 6y ago
  As I write the word "immune" appears only twice in 161 comments. In "Gandhi's Truth" by Erik Erikson, he wrote fifty years ago of adapting one's immune system to India as a rite of passage. Even today, one arrives with caution and does not live like an Indian. My friends born in India but raised elsewhere share this necessary caution with me. This is more complex than the Indian immune system going "That's the best you got?" My friends have been following web seminars by medical specialists. The popular "binary" impression of developed immunity is hopelessly naive. The virus hacks an existing immune system; it depends on a functioning immune system to propagate. It does not strain credibility to suppose that the typical Indian immune system is different, and this affects virus propagation. Here's a good specialist introduction to the virus, describing the complexity of the relationship with immune responses: https://youtu.be/wh-u2GDrmDA https://youtu.be/wh-u2GDrmDA
• Mikeb85 6y ago
  There's plenty of evidence that this coronavirus is less stable in hotter, humid climates. Given India has some dense cities, diverse climates and lots of indoor buildings it obviously has spread a bit, but warm developing countries like India and Vietnam were among the first hit and have relatively little spread for their population density.
• rpiguy 6y ago
  Not a mystery at all. Multiple factors work in India's favor in likely order of impact: - Young Population - Non-obese population - Heat and Humidity across a lot of the country - Widespread deployment of anti-malarials to combat malaria - Wide spread deployment of BCG vaccine - Tumeric heavy diet compared to the rest of the world The top 3 are non-controversial. Young, skinny people are less susceptible, and the spread of the virus slows with sunlight, heat, and humidity. Anti-malarials like Chloroquine, etc. are more controversial, but there is significant anecdotal evidence, as well as in vitro studies indicating they may be helpful. Furthermore, countries that widely deploy anti-malarials for malaria have so far shown lower death rates than expected (Brazil in particular should be on fire with COVID-19). BCG vaccine for TB appears to help with COVID-19, through a heightened general immune response. Big studies going on right now to test this theory. There are six different formulations of the vaccine and it is unclear if the different formulations effect its potential efficacy against COVID-19. This is even more "on the edge" of science than the anti-malarials, but the BCG vaccine has shown long lasting resistance to all kinds of respiratory ailments in populations where it is deployed. Tumeric is flat out a stretch. Curcumin has come up over and over again in studies of compounds that may help. But, there is absolutely no testing or real evidence at this time. It is merely a supposition based on molecular models and meta-studies of other studies on the compound. I included it for discussion, since Tumeric consumption is likely higher in India than many other countries. I also wonder if it plays any role in traditional medicine in the country. People look for a silver bullet, but there are many factors at play here.
  • macawfish 6y ago
    Curcumin downmodulates a few of the same inflammatory cytokines that spike in deadly covid-19 cases. It's also been shown as an effective adjunct therapy for people with asthma. It's really not a huge stretch to think that it could hinder the progression of covid-19, even if the only mechanism is that people feel less of an urge to cough.
• dnprock 6y ago
  This virus seems sneaky. It's seasonal and it probably does not like heat. For countries closer to the equator, it has not done much damage. It's hard to hide deaths. I think the numbers are close to reality. But the virus may surge in these countries after summer when the heat recedes.
  • danans 6y ago
    Sounds more and more like heat is a major factor, whose effect is amplified when coupled with the massive lockdown that India implemented. I wonder whether or not the heat will continue to keep it at bay after the lockdown is lifted.
• yalogin 6y ago
  India is doing the lockdown well. Apartment buildings apparently have taken it on themselves to not allow anyone in and out of the buildings. They let one vendor each for groceries, milk, vegetables, pharmacy etc and that's it. People are not allowed to go out or even play in the yard. And this is not government mandated, the HOA equivalent for apartment buildings are doing it themselves.
• grwthckrmstr 6y ago
  There's no mystery. India acted early and went into nation wide lockdown.
• herostratus101 6y ago
  Not enough people make it into their 80s to have a large vulnerable population. Mystery solved.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• drno123 6y ago
  Could this be related to mandatory BCG vaccination programme? If you compare Covid19 death rates between Portugal and Spain, or Ireland and UK, it is 3 times lower in favor of countries with BCG vaccinations.
• nine_zeros 6y ago
  Is there a district-wise covid map that someone could keep a track of this?
• morninglight 6y ago
  FUN FACT - India has the world's highest percentage of people with type B blood. (血液型)
• dennis_jeeves 6y ago
  Or... the Covid is not as fatal as it is widely assumed.
• sriram_malhar 6y ago
  One more possible factor for the low number of cases that has not been discussed in this thread is the high genetic diversity. Search for 'HLA covid india'. https://www.ncbs.res.in/content/comparative-analyses-low-medium-and-high-resolution-hla-typing-technologies-human https://www.ncbs.res.in/content/comparative-analyses-low-med...