7 ms·

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 pe

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 7y 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 7y 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 7y 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.
  - JPKab 7y ago
    OBL was "murdered"? Is that your view?
    - selimthegrim 7y ago
      Forget that part, since when do doctors get abused in Pakistan (except in the brawl by lawyers recently)? What’s a basis for this speculation?
      - mirimir 7y ago
        Huh. I thought that this was common knowledge. > The Taliban began assassinating polio workers the year after the CIA used a vaccination campaign for hepatitis B, not polio, to identify Osama bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150303-polio-pakistan-islamic-state-refugees-vaccination-health/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150303-polio... > There has been opposition to such immunisation drives from some powerful clerics while a fake CIA vaccination campaign, which helped to locate Osama Bin Laden in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, is thought to have had a detrimental effect as well. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18868267 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18868267
        selimthegrim 7y ago
        Yeah but it's quite a leap from polio vaccinators getting waxed and Shakil Afridi being jailed to "Doctors have a bad reputation in Pakistan" and then imply it's because it's a Muslim country. Many (even conservative) parents send their daughters to publicly financed medical colleges often to increase their marriage prospects. Does that sound like a thing they would do if doctors had a bad rap? Doctors came out and criticized the clerics for lack of adherence to social distancing, I didn't see anyone call them un-Islamic for standing their ground.
        mirimir 7y ago
        Maybe so. But I never claimed that it was mainstream in Pakistan. Just that it might account for this in ramraj07's comment:[0] > 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). Perhaps they could share a link about that. 0) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23005076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23005076
- signal11 7y ago
  It's very stupid, but a (very) few people see them as potential spreaders of the disease. Public health workers going into the community to find infected people have also been attacked. Also, until recently, suspected COVID patients had to be in hospital -- no home isolation allowed -- and some of these patients (or their relatives) thought that venting their anger on doctors would help. Unfortunately, the law of large numbers in India means that a "very few" can mean tens of thousands of people. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-52151141 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-52151141 [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-13/doctors-come-under-attack-in-india-as-coronavirus-stigma-grows https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-13/doctors-c...
  - barkingcat 7y ago
    In North American long term care facilities, this is exactly what's happening. In Canada, a ban was put in place to prevent health workers from working in multiple long term care facilities - it was found that infectious material was making its way via health workers from one home to another, all full of high risk populations. Add in the fact that many hospitals in North America are short on PPE, and some are even preventing nurses and care personnelle from wearing PPE (or to bring their own, etc) - and you can see how much of an issue this can be. Of course, beating up the doctors is a bad idea, but the roots of the idea that health workers are potential spreaders isn't all that far fetched.
  - clort 7y ago
    > a (very) few people see them as potential spreaders One problem is that although only a very few will see it this way, other people would be cautious about being caught up in it. This could affect the way they behave because if they think that somebody died in their house from this disease then they won't want to advertise that at all (eg by blowing horns) in case they were subsequently targeted. The fear is likely worse than the reality but behavior like this is driven more by fear. However I can understand that ramraj07 says it seems unlikely on their street as it would surely be difficult in a close community to hide a van coming to take Auntie-ji away.
- quantummkv 7y ago
  > What? Why are doctors being beaten up? I don't understand. The anti-vax crowd in India tends to be on the violent side of things.
kranner 7y ago
I'm guessing you live in Hyderabad. Clearly your street is not a hotspot, and you really shouldn't be extrapolating from it to the rest of India. As far as people having it while being asymptomatic, that is unfalsifiable until they are tested.
- ramraj07 7y ago
  Don't think I mentioned anything to generalize. Just what I observed in my city (Chennai) in my street. What I was implying is that perhaps things did go okay in terms of slowing the spread in India: of course, there's probably more spread than is being reported, but that seems par for course everywhere. I'm only worried that the lockdown is going to significantly affect the poorer communities worse at the expense of richer folks.
  - kranner 7y ago
    Apologies, I read that as extrapolation. Also assumed Hyderabad as that is the fifth biggest city in size, and cases are around the same in number.
    - barkingcat 7y ago
      uh ... India has so many cities, how can you assume any city unless the person says?
      - kranner 7y ago
        GP did say that they lived in 1) the fifth biggest city in India, and 2) the case count was currently 570 in their city. The fifth biggest city in India population-wise is Ahmedabad but its case count is 2378. The fifth biggest city in India area-wise is Hyderabad whose case count is 542. Therefore I assumed OP meant Hyderabad. Both counts are from https://www.covid19india.org/ https://www.covid19india.org/
  - ignoramous 7y ago
    > I'm only worried that the lockdown is going to significantly affect the poorer communities worse at the expense of richer folks. Sorry, what? The lockdown isn't about the rich or the poor. It is mostly about containing a deadly disease we don't fully understand yet. It is for the medics but also mostly to keep the social fabric intact. No one wants this to descent into chaos and madness without controls in-place. A deliberated and measured response is warranted despite an unprecedented loss of livelihood and absence of any real infrastructure to handle the fallout, especially to support the 500m people who live on daily-wages. Unless an effective prophylactic or a therapeutic treatment is discovered, lifting the lockdown can be disastrous for a country as dense as India and for incubation periods as long as they are for a rabidly contagious SARS-CoV-2. Hopefully, the current situation improves in a month (most cities and states could possibly reopen in the coming weeks), but I wish the conversation around UBI (food subsidies including) and universal healthcare picks up steam rather than the pathetic pettiness around religious faultlines that seems to be in focus, all the time, aided by the ruling party's inclination to make a mockery out of democracy and India's minorities. I digress.
sseth 7y ago
My own personal experience : A close relative passed away in a large city early April (of pneumonia caused by COVID-19) complications. His entire family was interviewed for 2 hours and all contacts were screened - the family and some of the contacts were also put in quarantine and tested. The names of my relative and others who tested positive were put in the papers the next day (name, address etc) after the test, to help identify people who may be may have come in contact. This is obviously anecdotal - but i have so far seen the opposite of hiding data - some places are revealing too much rather than too little information. But India has a federal structure, different states may have different policies. It is pointless to make one statement about the whole country, especially when the numbers are coming from states, not the center.
kolinko 7y ago
570 official cases in the city would mean 5-20 deaths. You most lokely wouldn’t noce those deaths on your street unless the street has 20% of the popularion of the city.
- __s 7y ago
  His comment is addressing thoughts about whether official numbers are off by a couple orders of magnitude
exhilaration 7y ago
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. Could people be hiding deaths due to the stigma around COVID? Quietly taking their loved ones' bodies out of the neighborhood for funerals?
- ramraj07 7y ago
  Never say never, but when I say crowded small street, I definitely mean it, nothing larger than a tote bag moves without gossip spreading, unless maybe at 3 am. So, perhaps? But I wouldn't bet much money on it personally! We will know in a few weeks though, if people are dying in our street, given the absolute lack of any distancing measures inside the streets (lockdown is only at a block level), more people should get very sick very soon.. hope not.
pkphilip 7y ago
There are some numbers which simply don't make any sense. Take today's data: Delhi - 3,314 cases. (likely to go up as data is updated for tonight). Total population of Delhi is 19 Million. Rajasthan - 2,438 cases. Total population: 68.9 Million Haryana - 311 cases. Total population: 25.4 Million Haryana has less than 10% of Delhi's covid case numbers while being a much larger state and while sharing a big border with both Delhi and Rajasthan where the covid cases are much higher. Also, huge numbers of people travel between Haryana and Delhi on a daily basis. Haryana's numbers make no sense. Uttar Pradesh - 2,134 cases. Total population: 204 Million About 30% less than Delhi while being much, much larger than Delhi and sharing a huge border with Delhi with vast numbers of people travelling to and from Delhi! Uttar Pradesh numbers too seem heavily under reported. Bihar - 403 cases. Total population: 99 Million Bihar has much, much lower covid cases than even Uttar Pradesh when Uttar Pradesh's numbers were themselves already suspiciously low. Bihar shares a huge border with Uttar Pradesh and there is simply no way Bihar with a much poorer healthcare infrastructure can have such low covid numbers. Both UP and Bihar has huge numbers of migrants working in Delhi, Mumbai etc which makes these numbers even more dubious. So on the face of it, there are big issues with these numbers being put out by some of the biggest states in India. If these numbers were more accurate, the overall figures for covid cases from India will be much higher. India shares a massive border with China and is right next to China while having almost the same number of covid cases as Peru - which is halfway across the world from China and which is relatively shielded from the rest of the world in comparison to India - in terms of number of travellers coming in etc.

gspr 7y 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 7y 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 7y 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.
- JPKab 7y ago
  OBL was "murdered"? Is that your view?
  - selimthegrim 7y ago
    Forget that part, since when do doctors get abused in Pakistan (except in the brawl by lawyers recently)? What’s a basis for this speculation?
    - mirimir 7y ago
      Huh. I thought that this was common knowledge. > The Taliban began assassinating polio workers the year after the CIA used a vaccination campaign for hepatitis B, not polio, to identify Osama bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150303-polio-pakistan-islamic-state-refugees-vaccination-health/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150303-polio... > There has been opposition to such immunisation drives from some powerful clerics while a fake CIA vaccination campaign, which helped to locate Osama Bin Laden in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, is thought to have had a detrimental effect as well. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18868267 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18868267
      - selimthegrim 7y ago
        Yeah but it's quite a leap from polio vaccinators getting waxed and Shakil Afridi being jailed to "Doctors have a bad reputation in Pakistan" and then imply it's because it's a Muslim country. Many (even conservative) parents send their daughters to publicly financed medical colleges often to increase their marriage prospects. Does that sound like a thing they would do if doctors had a bad rap? Doctors came out and criticized the clerics for lack of adherence to social distancing, I didn't see anyone call them un-Islamic for standing their ground.
        mirimir 7y ago
        Maybe so. But I never claimed that it was mainstream in Pakistan. Just that it might account for this in ramraj07's comment:[0] > 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). Perhaps they could share a link about that. 0) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23005076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23005076
signal11 7y ago
It's very stupid, but a (very) few people see them as potential spreaders of the disease. Public health workers going into the community to find infected people have also been attacked. Also, until recently, suspected COVID patients had to be in hospital -- no home isolation allowed -- and some of these patients (or their relatives) thought that venting their anger on doctors would help. Unfortunately, the law of large numbers in India means that a "very few" can mean tens of thousands of people. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-52151141 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-52151141 [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-13/doctors-come-under-attack-in-india-as-coronavirus-stigma-grows https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-13/doctors-c...
- barkingcat 7y ago
  In North American long term care facilities, this is exactly what's happening. In Canada, a ban was put in place to prevent health workers from working in multiple long term care facilities - it was found that infectious material was making its way via health workers from one home to another, all full of high risk populations. Add in the fact that many hospitals in North America are short on PPE, and some are even preventing nurses and care personnelle from wearing PPE (or to bring their own, etc) - and you can see how much of an issue this can be. Of course, beating up the doctors is a bad idea, but the roots of the idea that health workers are potential spreaders isn't all that far fetched.
- clort 7y ago
  > a (very) few people see them as potential spreaders One problem is that although only a very few will see it this way, other people would be cautious about being caught up in it. This could affect the way they behave because if they think that somebody died in their house from this disease then they won't want to advertise that at all (eg by blowing horns) in case they were subsequently targeted. The fear is likely worse than the reality but behavior like this is driven more by fear. However I can understand that ramraj07 says it seems unlikely on their street as it would surely be difficult in a close community to hide a van coming to take Auntie-ji away.
quantummkv 7y ago
> What? Why are doctors being beaten up? I don't understand. The anti-vax crowd in India tends to be on the violent side of things.

kranner 7y ago

I'm guessing you live in Hyderabad. Clearly your street is not a hotspot, and you really shouldn't be extrapolating from it to the rest of India. As far as people having it while being asymptomatic, that is unfalsifiable until they are tested.

ramraj07 7y ago
Don't think I mentioned anything to generalize. Just what I observed in my city (Chennai) in my street. What I was implying is that perhaps things did go okay in terms of slowing the spread in India: of course, there's probably more spread than is being reported, but that seems par for course everywhere. I'm only worried that the lockdown is going to significantly affect the poorer communities worse at the expense of richer folks.
- kranner 7y ago
  Apologies, I read that as extrapolation. Also assumed Hyderabad as that is the fifth biggest city in size, and cases are around the same in number.
  - barkingcat 7y ago
    uh ... India has so many cities, how can you assume any city unless the person says?
    - kranner 7y ago
      GP did say that they lived in 1) the fifth biggest city in India, and 2) the case count was currently 570 in their city. The fifth biggest city in India population-wise is Ahmedabad but its case count is 2378. The fifth biggest city in India area-wise is Hyderabad whose case count is 542. Therefore I assumed OP meant Hyderabad. Both counts are from https://www.covid19india.org/ https://www.covid19india.org/
- ignoramous 7y ago
  > I'm only worried that the lockdown is going to significantly affect the poorer communities worse at the expense of richer folks. Sorry, what? The lockdown isn't about the rich or the poor. It is mostly about containing a deadly disease we don't fully understand yet. It is for the medics but also mostly to keep the social fabric intact. No one wants this to descent into chaos and madness without controls in-place. A deliberated and measured response is warranted despite an unprecedented loss of livelihood and absence of any real infrastructure to handle the fallout, especially to support the 500m people who live on daily-wages. Unless an effective prophylactic or a therapeutic treatment is discovered, lifting the lockdown can be disastrous for a country as dense as India and for incubation periods as long as they are for a rabidly contagious SARS-CoV-2. Hopefully, the current situation improves in a month (most cities and states could possibly reopen in the coming weeks), but I wish the conversation around UBI (food subsidies including) and universal healthcare picks up steam rather than the pathetic pettiness around religious faultlines that seems to be in focus, all the time, aided by the ruling party's inclination to make a mockery out of democracy and India's minorities. I digress.

sseth 7y ago

My own personal experience : A close relative passed away in a large city early April (of pneumonia caused by COVID-19) complications. His entire family was interviewed for 2 hours and all contacts were screened - the family and some of the contacts were also put in quarantine and tested. The names of my relative and others who tested positive were put in the papers the next day (name, address etc) after the test, to help identify people who may be may have come in contact. This is obviously anecdotal - but i have so far seen the opposite of hiding data - some places are revealing too much rather than too little information. But India has a federal structure, different states may have different policies. It is pointless to make one statement about the whole country, especially when the numbers are coming from states, not the center.

kolinko 7y ago

570 official cases in the city would mean 5-20 deaths. You most lokely wouldn’t noce those deaths on your street unless the street has 20% of the popularion of the city.

__s 7y ago
His comment is addressing thoughts about whether official numbers are off by a couple orders of magnitude

exhilaration 7y ago

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. Could people be hiding deaths due to the stigma around COVID? Quietly taking their loved ones' bodies out of the neighborhood for funerals?

ramraj07 7y ago
Never say never, but when I say crowded small street, I definitely mean it, nothing larger than a tote bag moves without gossip spreading, unless maybe at 3 am. So, perhaps? But I wouldn't bet much money on it personally! We will know in a few weeks though, if people are dying in our street, given the absolute lack of any distancing measures inside the streets (lockdown is only at a block level), more people should get very sick very soon.. hope not.

pkphilip 7y ago

There are some numbers which simply don't make any sense. Take today's data: Delhi - 3,314 cases. (likely to go up as data is updated for tonight). Total population of Delhi is 19 Million. Rajasthan - 2,438 cases. Total population: 68.9 Million Haryana - 311 cases. Total population: 25.4 Million Haryana has less than 10% of Delhi's covid case numbers while being a much larger state and while sharing a big border with both Delhi and Rajasthan where the covid cases are much higher. Also, huge numbers of people travel between Haryana and Delhi on a daily basis. Haryana's numbers make no sense. Uttar Pradesh - 2,134 cases. Total population: 204 Million About 30% less than Delhi while being much, much larger than Delhi and sharing a huge border with Delhi with vast numbers of people travelling to and from Delhi! Uttar Pradesh numbers too seem heavily under reported. Bihar - 403 cases. Total population: 99 Million Bihar has much, much lower covid cases than even Uttar Pradesh when Uttar Pradesh's numbers were themselves already suspiciously low. Bihar shares a huge border with Uttar Pradesh and there is simply no way Bihar with a much poorer healthcare infrastructure can have such low covid numbers. Both UP and Bihar has huge numbers of migrants working in Delhi, Mumbai etc which makes these numbers even more dubious. So on the face of it, there are big issues with these numbers being put out by some of the biggest states in India. If these numbers were more accurate, the overall figures for covid cases from India will be much higher. India shares a massive border with China and is right next to China while having almost the same number of covid cases as Peru - which is halfway across the world from China and which is relatively shielded from the rest of the world in comparison to India - in terms of number of travellers coming in etc.