Coronavirus SARS-Cov2 (COVID-19)

[jayakris]

Another good day, as the numbers continue to fall everywhere... Only +37.7K today, from 1198K tests @ 3.15%... Mumbai had a reconciliation of -2,250, so it was effectively +35.5K today....

I don't think any area (except may be Ladakh) showed a rising trend today. Delhi is getting ready to leave the "bad area" list. KER keeps sleepwalking and the drop there is painfully slow. Nothing new. They refuse to test well in the God-disowned Godforsaken Country of communist idiots, called Kerala.

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ICMR Update: 143,557,647 total tests... Wednesday tests: 1,111,698... Lab count: 2188

[jayakris]

The drop in numbers continue. We had a +36.6K today... This was from 1261K tests at 2.90% positivity. Whoa!!

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ICMR Update: 144,727,749 total tests ... Thursday tests: 1,170,102... Lab count: 2196

[jayakris]

Another +36.7K today, from 1249K tests @ 2.94%... No rising trend but not much of a drop either, day to day. But week-to-week drops is very much there. As every day last week was at the 41-45K range, the seven-day average dropped again to 36.8K now... Hopefully the numbers in the middle of next week will be under 35K for continued drops.

The deaths numbers have shown a slight rise in the last few days though. Like from about 490 average to about 510 average. Not too troublesome, but I was hoping for us to be below 450 per day by now. I think this is a period when respiratory issues are always more sever in India, due to the weather and pollution affecting the health even more, so perhaps it should've been expected. Our national CFR is at 1.45% and it hasn't been dropping from that number for a few days now.

All in all, India is one of the very few places in the world that are currently showing a down-trend in the numbers. It is raging like wildfire almost everywhere. Places like USA, Russia, Brazil, Korea, Japan, Turkey, Poland, Ukraine, Italy, etc are showing serious rising trends. Pakistan/SriLanka too. Korea actually had a +629 today, which is the highest they have had in 9 months, since March 5th!

[prasen9]

So you are saying that the problem is that too many people live in the Northern Hemisphere? I agree. We need to send some to the South. Brazil is led by a nutcase. So, elsewhere. By the Southern winter, we will have vaccines. Problem solved.

[jayakris]

So you are saying that the problem is that too many people live in the Northern Hemisphere? I agree. We need to send some to the South. Brazil is led by a nutcase. So, elsewhere. By the Southern winter, we will have vaccines. Problem solved.

Well, it still doesn't seem to show all that much of great correlation to temperature. There is definitely some effect, but the second and third waves just start off after some time, whatever the whether is. South Africa, for instance, has had the second wave start off in the last 3 weeks when it's been pretty warm there, and it has gone to +4500 a day now, from around +1500 that they averaged for a couple of months after the first wave ended in Aug/Sep. Argentina had its first wave start just about a month after India, and had a peak a month after us too (ARG is one of the very few countries like India, that has had only one large single peak so far)... But ARG's pattern of drop in cases in the past month may have been affected by the weather.

But the weather doesn't seem to affect the start of the waves. Korea had their second wave at the peak of a hot summer in August, and are on their third wave now, when it is very cold there (but it looks definitely worse than the second wave).

It is possible that the weather is affecting the severity of the wave, depending on when it starts off. From that standpoint, India may be in decent shape, because most places should be warm in India by the time our next wave hits (which should be in February or so - hopefully not earlier)

It is still a very unpredictable virus. No one thing seems to explain how things have gone in different countries.

[jayakris]

By the Southern winter, we will have vaccines. Problem solved.

It is looking more and more to me like vaccines may not be of much help for a while. It will take significant time before a good fraction (say 40-50% of the population) is vaccinated in most countries. May take 9 to 12 months from now for that to happen (maybe more!). That is good enough time for multiple waves in many countries and a lot more people to get infected. About 1% of the world's population is officially infected (tested and found) as of now. But in reality, it is probably 5% or so who have got exposed to it and developed antibodies etc. Probably a much higher fraction of super-spreaders have got exposed and developed immunity too. Maybe 20 to 30% of the serious super-spreaders.

In places like USA and Europe, where 4 to 6 percent have got officially infected, and 15 or 25% have got exposed, an even higher fraction of super-spreaders may already be done. But still, there is plenty of time for the infection numbers to double over the next 3-4 months. But by then, do we even need the vaccine in the USA? Most people who can spread it will no longer be much of a carrier for it because they would all have got immunity.

But in a place like India, a vaccine would be very useful because India is still at only 0.6% official infections. Probably no higher than 3 percent or so of the population has even been exposed, to develop any immunity. If we can have a serious vaccination drive, it is possible that we could stop the virus with maybe one more wave next year or some small waves here and there, and finish this thing off with only say 5 to 10% of the population exposed and say 2 percent infected (which is a big 28 million people - three times the current total infection) by sometime in 2022.

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ICMR Update: 145,885,512 total tests... Friday tests: 1,157,763... Lab count: 2199

[prasen9]

Yep. It is a mixture model. But, in winter, at least where it gets somewhat cold, people start meeting indoors and that spreads the disease faster/more. Outdoors people can spread out more although we often do not do that diligently.

[jayakris]

^^ Yes. Winter seems to add to indoor infections, probably more within families, as they stay inside. The summer on the other hand causes more activities and interactions across families. Even if the infections may be very few outdoors in the hot weather, there are also more indoor interactions (and more super-spreader possibilities with more mobility between families and friends-groups). So, it is a mixture model of positive and negative effects in winter and summer.

Meanwhile, we only had +36.0K today (from 1243K tests at 2.90% positivity). The 7-day average dipped again by another -829 to 35.9K... Except in Kerala, HP and maybe Ladakh/Nagaland, there are no notable issues anywhere.

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ICMR Update: 146,986,575 total tests... Saturday tests: 1,101,063... Lab count: 2205

[sameerph]

It is still a very unpredictable virus. No one thing seems to explain how things have gone in different countries.

True, I still do not know what leads to the first wave going down and what leads you second waive.

One think I guess is first wave goes down when sufficient people get infected out of the people moving out even during full or partial lockdown. In that case, second wave would be starting a few days after movement restrictions are lifted and people start mingling with people outside the circle in which they were moving during lockdown. That seems logical for India as we had one of the stricted lockdowns in the world. Because of thae our first wave was longest.

But our second wave should have started by now as people are moving around freely now and it has been almost a month since Diwali. But numbers are still going down.

[jayakris]

I still do not know what leads to the first wave going down and what leads you second waive.

It is quite unclear to me too, but it is probably still dependent on the fraction (or number) of super-spreaders in the society. Both super-spreader people and super-spreader events. Once the super-spreader people get infected and cannot infect each other, the ability of the virus to spread goes down. Mathematically, it feels to me like it results in a combination of a convex and displaced concave curve together, which causes a rather sharp peak and a drop (which almost every country seems to get!) ... The question then is how long it takes before another group of super-spreaders emerge who feed on each other and start rising the curve again. So, there is some sort of an unpredictable delay between the first drop and the next one. Societal activity/mobility level, testing level, weather etc all affect the time taken till a critical mass of super-spreaders form. So it is all unpredictable.

So, some countries have had the next wave start only after a long time after the first wave ended with almost no cases or very low numbers. Korea, Pakistan etc. But, for some like the USA, it happened before the first wave was done. No idea when the second wave will start in India. It seems like it may take a while more. It does seem like the key is to bring the first wave down to almost zero with sustained testing, which countries like USA did not do. India needs to do that. For the time being, we are doing the job, not allowing the test numbers to drop too much. So, let us hope that we will bring the numbers much further down, and then can delay the next wave. Those like Pinarayi and Mamata need to cooperate - so far, they aren't doing what they need to do.

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We had only only +33.2K today... That was from 1188K tests at 2.79% positivity. Can you believe that?? 2.79% !!! The drop keeps going. The 7-day average of new cases fell to 35.1K now, with another -850 drop in that.... It is now again 12 consecutive drops in out 7-day average. Hope it continues for a few more weeks and we get down to below 20K per day before another wave starts.

[Atithee]

I am a bit perplexed. Unlike the peak time in India, almost everyone I know in India now either has an immediate family member with the virus or knows someone really close who is. Within the infected family, pretty much the whole family is infected (and, thankfully recovered). This is opposite of the peak days; yet, the total number of infections is so low in India. Compare that to USA, where the number of people who knows an infected person is much higher than in May (just like India). So, the super high USA infections make logical sense. Do the low numbers in India make sense?

[Kumar]

I am a bit perplexed. Unlike the peak time in India, almost everyone I know in India now either has an immediate family member with the virus or knows someone really close who is. Within the infected family, pretty much the whole family is infected (and, thankfully recovered). This is opposite of the peak days; yet, the total number of infections is so low in India. Compare that to USA, where the number of people who knows an infected person is much higher than in May (just like India). So, the super high USA infections make logical sense. Do the low numbers in India make sense?

May be India attained the same level of immunity as our neighbors where totals never went up

[jayakris]

Well, the numbers generally do check up quite well in terms of the deaths reported. You can only hide so much of deaths. Some states that tried to hide it, got caught pretty soon. This is one thing the opposition politicians understood everywhere in India and they have been watching - because it is easy to start talking of deaths being hidden and the news outlets will buy your complaint. So, I tend to think that the deaths reported do check out in terms of what is coming to the hospitals. There are probably 20-25% deaths that people would try to cover up, due to stigma reasons (some may manage to get it covered up too). There is probably some 15-25% that states try to "audit" and try not to connect to Covid. But all in all, I think our death numbers are not more than 30-40% under-reported.

Then there is the fact that our CFR is so low too. Only 60% of the world average. If the cases are under-reported, the deaths are also under-reported, how can the CFR be that low? My feeling is that we are under-reporting deaths by a little bit (maybe 20-30% but it is under-reported in most countries too, anyway). If at all, our case numbers are probably over-reported. We are picking up a lot more less-severe cases than they pick up in many other countries. The fraction of severe/critical patients needing oxygen support is so low in India compared to other places too (it is probably less than half of the world average!), which matches well with the thought that we are probably getting more patients than they get in other countries. Some of it is also due to our age advantage though; fewer older people among patients....

Anyway, I am generally of the opinion that our numbers are about as legit as from most of the world. Another reason is that we don't have centralize control of any numbers reported to fudge much. It is all done by states.

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ICMR Update: 147,787,656 total tests... Sunday tests: 801,081 ... Lab count: 2207 ... Hoping for something near 25-27K tomorrow!

[jayakris]

Our active patient total fell below 400K for the first time since July 20th. It had gone past one million to 1015K at one point!

[PKBasu]

We're back on an improving trend in the past week, and this Sunday and Monday seem to reinforce that.
I can say from personal experience that not all Indians who have contracted the Coronavirus have been counted. My father tested positive on the 9th day of relatively high fever (101-103F), and tested negative five days later. My mother hasn't been counted as having had the Coronavirus, although blood tests show she has antibodies (and is likely to have had Covid-19 a week or so before my father).