Coronavirus SARS-Cov2 (COVID-19)

[jayakris]

Looks like Amit Shah has taken on the Guwahati situation too. Yay!

@ANI Tweet - "Yesterday Union Home Minister Amit Shah called me up. As per Indian Govt's assessment, the #COVID19 situation in Guwahati is very apprehensive. Following his meeting with DG ICMR, Home Minister has directed me to change testing pattern. Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) has suggested a new testing model under which we will be able to will declare results within 1 hour. We will launch the new testing model named COVID-19 AG test in next 2-3 days: Himanta Biswa Sarma, Assam Health Minister"

Amit Shah seems to have suggested Delhi-like Antigen tests in quick order for Guwahati. Do it now and maybe they can stop the spread before it gets too late. Nice.

[jayakris]

How does the Telangana government control the press and every other institution like this? -- Health dept successful in controlling Covid spread: UoH survey

It is almost scary, that a state Government is able to do this. Unless I am missing something...

[jayakris]

Is this true? - Today -- Maharashtra: CM Uddhav Thackeray prays for miracle to overcome coronavirus crisis (Times of India)

"I prayed to Mauli. We want to see a miracle. Show us a miracle. Human beings have given up. We don't have medicine. There is nothing. How to go on with life by covering the mouth with a strip," Thackeray tweeted after the 'mahapooja'

Really?? How weak is this guy??

[sameerph]

Is this true? - Today -- Maharashtra: CM Uddhav Thackeray prays for miracle to overcome coronavirus crisis (Times of India)

"I prayed to Mauli. We want to see a miracle. Show us a miracle. Human beings have given up. We don't have medicine. There is nothing. How to go on with life by covering the mouth with a strip," Thackeray tweeted after the 'mahapooja'

Really?? How weak is this guy??

I had also screenshots of that tweet in Marathi which some of stauch BJP supporting freinds had put on FB . But, now there is no such tweet on CMO Maharahstra twitter. So, either he deleted it or it was a mischief by opposition.

Since TOI also reported it must be true. Really weak to say that for a CM of a state.

[Atithee]

Why? When every TV serial, movie, myth, legend, festival etc. in India is steeped by divine intervention, it is not surprising. It is a sad part of Indian thinking. CMs do what the public buys. There is absolutely room for practicing faith in whomever you believe or not believe in, but God would also like to help who try, not who end up at his/her door at the first sign of trouble. All these yagnas are such a terrible waste of time and money but people lap it up. What is a politician to do?

[jayakris]

I had also screenshots of that tweet in Marathi which some of stauch BJP supporting freinds had put on FB . But, now there is no such tweet on CMO Maharahstra twitter. So, either he deleted it or it was a mischief by opposition.

Since TOI also reported it must be true. Really weak to say that for a CM of a state.

Oh I see, so it was not English tweet. Then I would suspect mischief. Was the translation from Marathi correct, and did it mean to convey what those English lines conveyed?

Maybe he meant "medicine" figuratively? Or maybe he meant it as "people haven't found a therapeutic" (so need your help, God) and not like "Maharashtra is running out of medicine" (which is how the TOI translation looked). Even the "human being have given up" must to be a mischief translation, because I don't think Indian languages like Hindi or Malayalam have lines that convey what that English sentence conveys.

Very curious. Sounds like he wrote some lines to show his devotion to the deity (for sincere reasons or political reasons), and it all came out wrong in English translation. Am I right?

[Atithee]

Was there a maha Pooja regardless?

[jayakris]

Sameer, Mumbai did 5131 tests yesterday as per the latest BMC update. Other details:

Total positives: 1511 (so 29.4% positivity; but this is in a "controlled situation," so maybe okay, imho)
Suspected patients admitted: 1031
Contact tracing (High risk): 6245

So it seems like they trace about 1.2 extra "high risk" contacts per person who tests positive (actually these 6245 contacts would be from people who turned positive earlier, and really only 1 in 4 or 5 among those contacts are turning positive on testing anyway)... Then they decide on about 2/3rd of the people (1000 out of 1500) to be taken to the hospital - as they say "admitted". So, basically, they are bringing only the necessary people into the testing/treatment regime. This way they can be more responsive to those who actually need care, rather than try to test 5 contacts each for every positive patient, run 25K tests, and get 2500 positives (instead of 5K tests and 1.5K positives). The remaining 20K people who weren't tested on a day (and 1000 who may have trend positives) are all mostly in the houses from where these 5000 were tested - so the missing 1000 will call or come in if needed, themselves.

[jayakris]

Was there a maha Pooja regardless?

It looks like it was a strictly controlled affair at Pandharpur this time.

Anyway, the above was mischief. I think somebody at the CM office probably tweeted what he said at the temple as a Marathi tweet without realizing the danger of it being twisted. And sure, it got twisted by PTI in English - quite possibly to deliberately make him look bad. This article gives the actual video of him speaking. Even I can sorta understand what he is saying in Marathi. Just like what I guessed, he was saying that "people have not figured out a medicine" (at around 1:20 in the video). He is not saying it in the tone of somebody who had given up!!

[Rajiv]

This latest incident confirmed my existing fears , that the reporting and testing in India is fundamentally flawed and the correct standard testing procedures are not being followed and that the actual figure’s which reflect in India could dreadfully be much higher than we can all imagine

Hong Kong with a zero or couple of cases every day since the past few weeks , yesterday suddenly reported a worrying spurt of 27 imported case’s out of which 25 were residents returning from India.
Now fundamentally , one is not allowed to even board the flight if their paper work as regards clean bill of health is not in order.

So this begs a question , is our system fundamentally flawed which could not even detect even a single one of the 25 cases , and that just within 7 hours of them boarding the flight , the Hkg heath authorities discovered it , or is it the Chalta Hai still prevails even in this serious situation that those 25 bribed their way through and got false documents to board the flight,So this combination of bribing and inaccurate testing could well imply that the overall cases in India could be worryingly much higher and not reported correctly.

https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/ ... 200701.htm

[jayakris]

^^ How many people returned from India, out of which these 25 were found? Do you know? That would say something about the problem. If you randomly test 1000 people in some of the cities like Chennai or Mumbai, you will probably get 10 or 20 positives. Did a large number of Indians return?

Within India, say the Chennai airport, typically finds some 10-15 arrivals from foreign countries who test positive, and about 7 or 8 from within India (domestic travel) who turn positive, every day. Did HKG operate some Cathay flights to take HKG residents back there, or did they contract Air India to deliver them there? If it was the latter, then most probably they were let in by the airline without testing.

Tough to make any conclusions on Indian testing regime from being flawed because of HKG finding 27 cases. Somebody (either HKG officials or Indian officials) screwed up in enforcing whatever HKG's requirement was, on testing before leaving.

Actually I don't even know if people can get tested in India for the purposes of another country's rules of incoming travel. (I think they can, but I am not sure).

[jayakris]

ICMR Testing Update: 9,056,173 Total... Wednesday tests: 229,588 ... Not a huge increase, so I don't want to see more than 18.5K tomorrow, but we will probably see something near 20K. Lab count update: +9 to 1065

[sameerph]

Maybe he meant "medicine" figuratively? Or maybe he meant it as "people haven't found a therapeutic" (so need your help, God) and not like "Maharashtra is running out of medicine" (which is how the TOI translation looked). Even the "human being have given up" must to be a mischief translation, because I don't think Indian languages like Hindi or Malayalam have lines that convey what that English sentence conveys.

Very curious. Sounds like he wrote some lines to show his devotion to the deity (for sincere reasons or political reasons), and it all came out wrong in English translation. Am I right?

True, I just saw that video. He said human being are helpless ( did not really mean given up) as they do not have medicine for this. So, prey to the god that he does some miracle. It was only one sentence in what would have been at least 5-10 mins speech ( also perhaps to please the devotees who had gathered there and perhaps not in such a good mood as the festivities had to be cut this year ).. But got highlighted by press and opposition.

[suresh]

Worldometer Watch: We have moved to third place in total number of cases moving past Russia. We should overtake them in the total number of cases next week.

[sameerph]

Worldometer Watch: We have moved to third place in total number of cases moving past Russia. We should overtake them in the total number of cases next week.

In total active cases you mean to say, right ?

In the meantime, USA reports 51097 cases yesterday. Huge spike there. Now deaths are also increasing, although nowhere near the level in late April/late May. So, US has found a way to reduce death % or is deaths just a lagging indicator and that is why still low ?