Coronavirus SARS-Cov2 (COVID-19)

[jayakris]

I keep nervously checking to see if the numbers start to rise or flatten. My worry is that the second peak has been higher as happened during the Spanish Flu pandemic. We already have Delhi and Kerala heading towards their second peak. I shudder to think what might happen when TN/Maharashtra start to inevitably rise again. The number of deaths also going down is also a good thing.

Not Kerala. Kerala is only in its first peak. The earlier numbers in Kerala don't matter. The peaks after community transmission starts is what matters. The first one was just controlled and ended. Once community transmission starts, it is a whole other story, and Kerala totally screwed it up by continuing to focus on containment zones and all that crap, that really don't help. Lots of testing and quick test results are what matters (some families can protect each other within households).

We may not even have second peaks in most states because the first peak got spread over a long time, and it got to most parts of most states before the states went past a peak and went to low numbers (this didn't happen in Europe or USA, and that is why second peaks started, caused by OTHER places where it never got to before it spread in some places and got somewhat contained in those places).

I am not sure how many places are left for the virus to get to and India. It is in community transmission everywhere, I think. But some places are bound to be there, and cases may rise in such districts (or certain parts of cities, like happening in Delhi)... But I doubt if we would see huge numbers. But if we go down to 20K cases a day or something, we shouldn't be surprised if we go back up to 40K or 75K or something again.

In other words, I have no clue, and don't take any predictions from me seriously

[PKBasu]

I'm worried about the Bihar elections. A big, populous state where it will be difficult to maintain social distancing while voting. In Malaysia, an election in the relatively sparsely-populated state of Sabah has resulted in a big spike in cases across Malaysia (even though Sabah is separated from all but one Malaysian state by the South China Sea).

[sameerph]

Some of the cities or states already had second wave. Mumbai for instances. Daily cases came down to 700+ at one time to go back up to 2000+ and now down 1400+.

What is it that cause these second waves? If it is opening up and people disregarding caution then it may happen in Mumbai/ Maharashtra now. Now almost all public transport has opened up in Mumbai - buses are now allowed to operate at 100% capacity, suburban trains have opened for all women passengers. All restaurants open, gyms starting. Only thing still closed are cinema halls, temples and schools/colleges.And people seem to be wary of being locked up in houses and moving around freely. So, if any second otlr third wave has to happen it will happen in next few days at least here, maybe same all over India.

[jayakris]

^^ I think all kinds of different things cause second waves. Generally the delay in local transmission starting in different parts of the country/state/district/city is probably the biggest reason. The successive peaks are actually numbers from different places (if New York/ New Jersey had the big chunk of numbers in USA's first wave, Texas, California etc had a bigger portion of the second... So on... Similarly, different parts of Delhi are showing up in the first and second waves in Delhi and Mumbai, reportedly.

The reasons for the delay in local or community transmission starting in different places at different places could be any number of things. But mainly they seem to be [1] actual mobility restrictions, [2] the type of testing and quarantining which influences the speed with which any area of infections are brought under control (thus influencing the NUMBER of infected people that move to other less-infected areas) seem to the primary reason. Many parts of the world did better than in India on the second item, but no free country did the first part as well as India on a state by state basis.

But in general, the multiple waves happen due to a good number of reasons that interact in complicated ways....

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ICMR Update: 102,523,469 total tests... Saturday tests: 1,140,905... Lab count: 2003

[jayakris]

We had only +45.9K on Sunday, and it continues to drop... It is from around 1005K tests at 4.57% positivity...

Things have changed a lot internationally too. France had more cases than India, with +52K. USA also keeps going up, and had +62K. Europe's numbers are going through the roof. Russia has been having real problems again for the last 6 weeks and are adding +17K cases, about 50% more than the daily additions at their first peak. So, all these places are having serious second waves, and the cases per population is much higher than in India, for most of the top 20 places. But the death rates have been significantly lower the second time around everywhere, compared to when they got the first peak.

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ICMR Update: 103,462,778 tests... Sunday tests: 939,309... Lab count: 2006

[sameerph]

Things have changed a lot internationally too. France had more cases than India, with +52K. USA also keeps going up, and had +62K. Europe's numbers are going through the roof. Russia has been having real problems again for the last 6 weeks and are adding +17K cases, about 50% more than the daily additions at their first peak. So, all these places are having serious second waves, and the cases per population is much higher than in India, for most of the top 20 places. But the death rates have been significantly lower the second time around everywhere, compared to when they got the first peak.

Yes, I noticed that too. Is it because the medical fraternity all over the world has got a better handle over the disease or they are catching a lot more asymptomatic people than the first wave. It is good if the reason is first.

[Omkara]

Mostly doctors have a got a hang of things now. People also have realised that early detection has lower death rates. But the overall second wave in Euro and US is baffling.

May be due to onset of winter.

[depleter]

We will definitely go below 40K today .......and seeing the testing numbers may be even near 30K or even less...The tests are so low...Like Maharashtra conducted only 33k tests.

[jayakris]

But the death rates have been significantly lower the second time around everywhere, compared to when they got the first peak.

Yes, I noticed that too. Is it because the medical fraternity all over the world has got a better handle over the disease or they are catching a lot more asymptomatic people than the first wave. It is good if the reason is first.

Some of it is due to doctors and medical care getting better, and healthcare resource capacity being better (more ventilators, oxygen support) and the patients being found (or their coming forward) 3 or 4 days earlier in most places. The demand for medical care being better distributed spatially after the initial period also helped (i.e., no huge rush in just the hospitals in one locality where uncontrolled case growth happened initially before lockdowns) ...

But an equally important factor for the high death rates earlier is that USA, many countries in Europe missed huge numbers cases initially - who were never even tested. So deaths were happening from probably twice the number of cases and huge numbers of infected people just got cured themselves at home without ever being counted in the denominator of the death rate calculation.

In fact, despite all the bullshit we see in the press in India and abroad, India actually did not miss anywhere near the number of cases in the early period like all these other countries. The spread and growth were much slower in India and our testing regime generally kept up in the early periods. Thus our death rate was never more than 3.3% and it was under 2.75 for at least 6 months. Now down to 1.5% because of better medical care and more distributed case arrivals in hospitals. But USA and Europe were up in the 5 to 8% range for long periods and most got under 2.5 or 3% only after months. But in the second wave, many of those countries seem to be at or below 1 percent where Assam and Kerala has always been. Kerala, even with the kind of amazing case numbers over the last two months from just a few districts, is still showing death rates under 0.5 percent, which is phenomenal. I don't know how they do it, actually.

[Sin Hombre]

France hit 52k cases today !

I think a second lockdown in the 3 major urban centres (Paris, Marseille, Toulouse) is imminent.

The US second wave is mostly outside the big urban centres for now with cooler and humid weather, and people generally having stopped caring about Covid.

Suburbian US is getting hit in this second wave with schools, bars and restaurants reopened.

[jayakris]

We only had +36K today from about 838K tests at 4.30% positivity. The death total also stayed low at 482

ICMR Update: 104,420,894 total tests... Monday tests: 958,116... Labs: 2009

[rajitghosh]

Ramdas Athawale of "Go Corona, Corona Go" fame is now down with covid. This after 2 other prominent Maharashtra politicians Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar also got affected. While cases are reducing now it seems the politicians in Maharashtra are getting affected.

[jayakris]

^^ I guess the politicians are more vulnerable, with more and more people being there in functions and all that now.

We had only +43K cases today, from about 1000K tests reported by the states, so the positivity dropped a slight bit more to 4.30%... I'm still finding it all hard to believe... How quickly things changed in 5-6 weeks, that is. I keep waiting for the drops to flatten, but even that is not happening, and it is actually speeding up somewhat, instead!

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ICMR update: 105,487,680 total tests... Tuesday tests: 1,066,786... Lab count: 2011

[depleter]

With Feluda coming into the market with in 2 days(if reports are to be believed), wonder how much of a change it will bring in. Are the states prepared for it? ICMR has said that no RT PCR test is required after this unlike antigen tests, so this can actually completely replace the antigen tests. This can be a great tool in decreasing our second wave peak whenever it comes.

[jayakris]

^^^ Have not seen any announcements from the states on when they will procure these Feluda test kits and actually do it, but ICMR apparently had released an advisory last week, clearing its use. Didn't check the ICMR site for the advisory itself. My guess is that it will take a few days before we start seeing it being used.

Meanwhile, we had +50.2K on Wednesday. From about 1146K tests, so a positivity of 4.38%... It is our weekly spike day. Kerala again had over 8K, and Delhi increasing to over 5K cases is pretty concerning. They need to do a lot more AG tests if they are not going to increase RT-PCR tests... WB continues to not show any indication of raising the test numbers... bad numbers are coming primarily from Kerala, Delhi, WB, with Rajasthan and Haryana having relatively minor issues of slightly higher growth rate than the national average.

ICMR Update: 106,563,440 total tests... Wednesday tests: 1,075,760... Lab count: 2018