Coronavirus SARS-Cov2 (COVID-19)

[jayakris]

One more Covid-19 death. 38 year old Saif Ali in Patna, who came from Qatar. Apparently he had kidney failure.

It seems the little girl in Assam actually was found to be negative, so earlier reports of a community transmission is dropped.

As per The Hindu, the Joint Secretary of the health ministry said again today that there is still no evidence for community transmission, and that all cases ca be traced to a source now. This was when he was asked about the three cases in TN, Pune and Nagpur. Maybe they found links for those too. If so, that is good news.

[jayakris]

Ola will pay Rs. 30,000 to drivers who test positive in Bengaluru. Will we now have people who will try to fake Covid-19 to get money? Won't be easy but who knows, with Indians' ingenuity :)

[Varma]

....This was when he was asked about the three cases in TN, Pune and Nagpur. Maybe they found links for those too. If so, that is good news.

It doesn't really matter that they were able to find these links. The fact is, these people were out in the crowds for a long time and in the process possibly infected many others. Same with those 8-10 folks (who came from Indonesia) that were tested positive in Karimnagar, Telangana. I am really nervous about how things will be in the next 2 to 3 weeks in India. Really scared!

- Varma

[jayakris]

Well, I am a little less worried, now that we are pretty much going into a lockdown. I seriously think that we can limit the spread to mostly immediate families only and then track and keep it totally under control after 2 weeks or so (with no more than 5 to 10K cases by then; and may be as little as 1000 or 2000, and some 50-100 trickling in every day at best. Not an issue). That is as long as flights to India can stay cancelled for 2 or 3 weeks, because if not, we will see 300-400 people bringing it in every day. But keeping international travel stopped for more than that will be tough. Maybe we can survive with flights to just Korea, Japan, China (that will be irony!), Russia, Nigeria and Bangladesh for a few days more.

Anyway, some really good news just now. I got one of my wishes very quickly! Indian Railways just shut it down. No trains after today till Mar 31st, except good trains. Even Kolkata metro and suburbans are shit down till the 31st. How about that??? First time in history this must have happened. Or at least the first time since world war II.

Some states like Punjab and Rajasthan are already going to total lockdown till the 31st. Looks like it will be easier for Modiji to just make it nationwide soon after today's Janata Curfew.

[suresh]

Tamil Nadu has extended the current nationwide curfew to until 5am tomorrow (Monday) morning. IIT Madras has gone into work from home mode until the end of the month. I expect it to get extended after that. The number of cases in TN is 7 at the moment.

A request to others to also update their local situations as and when they deem necessary.

[jayakris]

TN has been doing a good job, even without too many cases. Great that it will be extended. I think the country will pretty much go into a lockdown, at least till Mar 31st. If Railways are done, we have to stop everything. Perfect. I think we can handle this virus now. Let's do it.

[Atithee]

Here’s LA Times’ customary piece with a token indian turncoat demonizing the Hindus alone:

https://news.yahoo.com/experts-fear-ind ... 34651.html

Yup, Hindus are the only problem in India.

[jayakris]

Here’s LA Times’ customary piece with a token indian turncoat demonizing the Hindus alone: https://news.yahoo.com/experts-fear-ind ... 34651.html
Yup, Hindus are the only problem in India.

Written by two Hindus, as usual, too. Let them write the bullshit. We will see in a couple of weeks if their doomsday talk continues. India has gone way beyond wanting the world to understand us. Let them all go to hell.

[jayakris]

Telengana, Bihar, Delhi, Nagaland, J&K have all ordered lockdowns, to join TN, Punjab, Rajasthan etc. Karnataka and Haryana have lockdown in 7 districts each.

Kerala has been advised by the Center to lock down 7 districts but the collectors have ordered lockdown in 2 districts (Kasarkod and Kozhikkod) and the CM has not ordered one (Do it now!). But lockdown or not, most Malayalees will soon stay home anyway. 15 more cases today in Kerala but spread out in districts, and all seem to be those who came from abroad. No community transmission yet. 67 total in Kerala.

UP needs to order one right now (I don't think they have one). Hello, Mr. Yogi. Lord Ram wants you to do your karma!

Worldometers shows 391, The Hindu shows 361 and wiki shows 340. Which is the correct? I say 375 for now. I was fearing 450 by the end of today in India, but maybe not. But we have moved up to the 42nd spot in world rankings

[Sin Hombre]

Albeit a week late, I think Indian governments are doing the right thing.

The next step is to prevent an economic collapse from happening and ensure that daily wage workers are supported for the next month or so.

[jayakris]

Meanwhile, I have not seen reports yet on the latest testing situation. We need to ramp it up nationwide to catch community transmission that may be happening. The earlier regime based on airport travel ends now in the next few days. We need samples coming from all kinds of localities on all kinds of suspected cases soon. Like 5,000 a day for the next few days.

So far we have tested 15,000. That was probably good enough for the current scheme, based on the positives we were getting, but if community transmission cases need to start coming in now (and they almost surely will, for the next few days - from those infected before lockdowns and the full travel ban). We need to test some 5000 or 10000 a day now. The capacity is there for testing, but what is the scheme to get the samples? Are all hospitals sending all kinds of suspected samples already? They better be.

They relaxed the criterion for testing a day or two earlier, but is it working and are samples going in ? Too early to say, I guess.

Albeit a week late, I think Indian governments are doing the right thing.

Maybe 3 or 4 days late but probably not a week, for the lockdown. It would have been too early and perhaps counter-productive, for the reasons Prasen was saying. And without a full air travel-ban it would have been tough. But I don't think we could have closed international travel earlier than today, because we had to let a lot of Indians come home and at least 3-4 day notice was needed. I don't think we could've done it a week ago, and people would've really objected, having not seen the spike we saw in the last 4 days in the numbers. Going from 75 to 330 in just about 3 days was scary enough for everybody. That was a necessity for this to work. Now nobody is questioning a lockdown. Not doing it is what people are complaining about. I mean the press and politicians. The poor people suffer in all these cases (now, or a week earlier) and we are never able to do much about that, when tough decisions are taken.

[sameerph]

Telengana, Bihar, Delhi, Nagaland, J&K have all ordered lockdowns, to join TN, Punjab, Rajasthan etc. Karnataka and Haryana have lockdown in 7 districts each.

Maharashtra also pretty much in lockdown. All pvt companies have been asked to shut down except those providing essential services. Also with local trains shut down pretty much impossible in Mumbai for 80 % to go to work.So, likely to be a complete lockdown which is a good thing.

[jayakris]

This man Modiji has some instincts (some right and some wrong) and this time it seems to have sorta done the job. I was upset that he didn't call a full lockdown. In retrospect, that would have caused a bit of real panic. Instead he made it sound like some sort of a "national celebration by sitting at home" or whatever that confused people, with his "bharayeeta janata, don't party" curfew. I guess he knew that people would basically do it if he asked in a nice way, and that the states would then follow through. Not bad!

Shutting down the trains was the key. Once Center did that, the country had to go into lockdown, effectively.

[jayakris]

OK, West Bengal also shut things down. Till March 27th, they say. I guess that will extend to Mar 31st past the weekend in the end anyway.

Come on UP. What are you doing?? -- Alright, the CM started doing his karma. Just announced 15 districts to lockdown, from tomorrow through Wedesday. Now do your karma fully, and extend it to Mar 31 and to all districts, Yogi sir.

Yogi "even appealed to people to perform prayers inside their houses and not visit religious place for worshiping" (The Hindu). What is with the "even" there, The Hindu?

[prasen9]

Yes, shutting down the economy is hard in India. Is there a plan for the government to put some money into the economy on an emergency basis? If not, people will come out on the streets to get their shops going. One got to eat after all. And needs income. So, you cannot do it too soon. You have to just time it right. And, we should cut the government some days slack. As long as the system is working based on sound advice, I am fine. Just keep the idiots out who make Modi sound like an idiot when he and his friends spout garbage and looks like total idiots at the World Science Congress of whatever crap they hold with the Sanghis. There are enough scientists and real brainpower to guide us in the right way. I trust them. That is the best we can do. Keep the gobar-medicine people out. No hard trying something on a small scale as a last resort. But, now is not the time to rely on the fundamentalists. We need to rely on the real experts. It seems like we are doing. But, it is never too early to be cautious of the gobar-brigade and always good to keep them at bay.

My problem is that you can take out the praying masses and the beach-goers, etc. Without total lockdown, there should have been a lot of public awareness raised earlier to stop congregating and to stop doing unessential things. That was a failure of the government. But, so far the response looks reasonable. Nobody is perfect. Everybody is trying to guess what is the best option.

If I am a fruit-seller and my child is going hungry without food, will I stay at home and do social distancing? Or will I go out to try to sell some fruits to people at their houses? Ditto for the shoe-repair guy. Etc., etc. In a country with not much social safety net, it will be hard to keep people in for a long period of time.