Coronavirus SARS-Cov2 (COVID-19)

[jayakris]

19,829 and as always, Himantabhai is the one to push us over new levels. Waiting for Assam to come and make it 20K today.

Himanta-bhai never fails to do the honors. +246 in Assam in a tweet at midnight, and we reached 20,132. (Actual count today - 19,082)

[jayakris]

Actually today was not too bad, as I look at the numbers carefully. Pretty good, in a way.

Here is my summary from the updates thread. "Delhi left the bad areas today with only a 3.8% growth. So all three big cities, Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai are not part of bad growth now. No other contiguous areas in the states had a growth rate more than 20% above our national average today (3.738*1.20 = 4.486%) and 250+ new cases... The bad areas together had +7573 cases to take their total to 116,652 cases at a bad area growth rate of 6.94%... The rest of the country had +11,509 cases to take their total to 412,925 at a good area growth rate of 2.87%. The bad areas shrunk noticeably today and the good areas are where 78% of our current cases are. In summary, today was actually not a bad day, though the total number scared the hell out of us. The old "whack-a-mole" process that Prasen predicted is fully in display. The attention now has gone fully away from Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Jaipur, Indore, Agra, Kolkata, Delhi and Chennai to Thane, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and maybe Madurai".

Areas where 4/5th of our cases are, grew at just 2.87 percent rate, and it includes 8 of our top-10 cities by population (also 17 of the top-20). in fact those 8 top-10 cities have all had their growth and calmed down to under 2.5% growth (Delhi is at 3.8%)... Those are #1 Mumbai, #2 Delhi, #5 Ahmedabad, #6 Chennai, #7 Kolkata, #8 Surat, #9 Pune, #10 Jaipur.

#4 Hyderabad and #3 Bengaluru have just had serious growth starting. #17 Thane is nearing its peak soon and will be out (but Thane is taking longer than I expected though; poor testing is the reason). It is tough to say how well each city will handle it. Hope these latest two troubled-cities will talk to other cities that went through the issues, and will handle things better. Bengaluru may do that, but Hyderabad seems to be filled with blockhead officials and politicians, so I don't know.

Number 11 thru 14 are yet to have any growth start, but they will get it soon (Vishakhapatanam, Nagpur, Kanpur, Lucknow). #16/17/18/20 are done already (Bhopal, Indore, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Vadodara). That leaves only Patna at #19 remaining.

As for the growth in states and smaller cities, it is all fine. AP and TN need to trace better and test more judiciously - avoiding test-result delays and focusing better on personnel-allocation for quarantining/containment activities.

[Sin Hombre]

The attention now has gone fully away from Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Jaipur, Indore, Agra, Kolkata, Delhi and Chennai to Thane, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and maybe Madurai

Have to disagree with this.

Outside of Mumbai, which hit it's peak earlier in June, every other major city in India is still trending upwards on the 7-day moving averages.

At this point, our peak may well hit daily 40k new cases.

[jayakris]

^^^ I was actually not talking about "peaks"in the city. Only about "bad growth" which for me is the kind of growth, which is really growth at 1.2 times or above our national average. So you are right.

Actually all these cities may get their own second and third peaks as the virus goes to newer places within the city, or forms clusters within different kinds of people (religious people earlier, slum-dwellers next, factory workers now, etc).

To me it seems like a 20+ day doubling period (about 3.25% daily growth or less) is somewhat manageable in all these cities because the active case growth rate doubles only over a month or more, which allows for some planning and upgrading of temporary hospital capacity (also setting up more labs and hiring more people and all that - though we are not doing those things sufficiently well).

There is very much the chance that some of these cities may get right back in the bad list. Chennai is a clear possibility, as your graphs show. I had wondered about that. But I think it will still be sort of in and out "bad areas" and not really dominating our national growth rate or anything like Mumbai/Amedabad and later Delhi/Chennai once did. Right now it may be Hyderabad and Bengaluru doing that soon.

I am no longer looking for a peak any time soon for India. We will quite probably see 40K a day (or more). I just don't want to see it sooner than by by mid-August though.

[Sin Hombre]

We need a peak Jay.

I don't have a full handle on this data, but I would imagine that a peak of >50k new cases/day will completely overwhelm our hospital system.

20-day doubling will mean we will hit that by Aug. I do not see a functional tested vaccine before March of next year.

[suresh]

I would be a lot happier if we see a downturn in the number of cases from Delhi and Chennai to counter the growth elsewhere. This should at least help flatten or slow the rise in the total number of cases. Our hospital system can easily get overwhelmed otherwise.

Even before a vaccine is available, it would be great if standard protocols are in place for Covid19 patients who need to be hospitalized. In other words, we would have figured out how to help patients recover and have good recovery rates. This is wishful thinking.

[suresh]

Covid-19: Chennai widens home quarantine eligibility

He is among the 3,500 young volunteers, contracted since mid-June till September by the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) to monitor and support 18 different categories of people under home quarantine.

Volunteers, who range from college students to office-goers are called FOCUS (Friend of Covid Person Under Surveillance).

They form part of a strategy developed by the GCC that is pegged on home quarantining even those who are likely to be infected to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19). Chennai accounts for 66.5% of the total number of Tamil Nadu’s cases, and is among the top five cities in the country in terms of case-load.

Jay has been asking for improved tracking and tracing. Maybe a different group with this kind of focus needs to be formed.

[jayakris]

We need a peak Jay.
I don't have a full handle on this data, but I would imagine that a peak of >50k new cases/day will completely overwhelm our hospital system.
20-day doubling will mean we will hit that by Aug. I do not see a functional tested vaccine before March of next year.

A high total on a daily basis may not matter that much anymore. It is each city for themselves anyway, and they are all reaching their worst "trouble days" at different times. At much higher lags than I expected back in March. Bengalurur growing a while 3 months after it all started, is just amazing. So, we should expect the Kanpurs and Vishakhapatanams to do that later too. I can see some scenearios where several cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Chennnai are adding 1500 cases a day but also getting 1400 discharges, and all is well with the city adding some capacity slowly... And other cities like Bengaluru or Hyderabad or Nagpur are still growing...

[jayakris]

Jay has been asking for improved tracking and tracing. Maybe a different group with this kind of focus needs to be formed.

Yes. This is all great. One of the problems in India is that the states do not communicate well at all, with each other. Or so it seems. Everybody seems to reinvent the wheels. Way back in March, one of the first things the Pathanamthitta collector did in Kerala, for the earliest cases of 3 people who came from Italy, was to draft in some 20-30 students from the local engineering college to form a tracking cell. By now, I would've hoped so many cities would've done this. We have so many Engineering students who would gladly volunteer (or can be paid hourly and they will be really happy!). They would have been so good in setting up databases with GIS and being quick to help with info and phone calls and all that. Pretty sad that we aren't doing this everywhere by now.

[jayakris]

ICMR testing update: 8,227,802 total. Saturday samples: 231,095 ... Another rise there. Hey, Sundays are supposed to give us a slight drop after a big Saturday, but can't expect that tomorrow, now. But anyway, let the testing numbers keep going up. We need to get to 300K next week, if not 275K.

Lab count update: +10 to 1036 (it needs to grow a little faster. More like 20 a day)

Sunday starts with a -184 to 7839 in the UNA column. That helps!

[jayakris]

Similar to what Suresh posted above - "Palghar: NSS, NCC members to be roped in to help contain coronavirus pandemic: The Palghar administration has decided to rope in teachers, National Cadet Corps and National Service Scheme members to help in efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak. As on Saturday night, the district had 3,930 Covid-19 cases, of which over 3,000 were in Vasai-Virar and some 900 in rural areas, and 117 deaths". (India Today)

This is nice, but this kind of ad-hoc stuff won't do. I can't understand why the states can't just go on a hiring spree (under some sort of a plan from the Central Government - actually wasn't this part of what Nirmala Sitaraman announced for stimulus?). Hire people for the health departments. Hire them on a 2 or 3 month temporary basis with automatic consideration for regular hiring which involves bureaucratic details in India. This is just for a quick training and then work on contract tracing, house-by-house survey, quarantining follow-up, community education, database management, logistics, etc. Later, the suitable people can be retained in the health departments for the longer term. Those with teaching certificates or degree/diploma in accounting, bookkeeping, math, stat, engineering, etc can all be considered (not just nursing and other medical technician degree/diplomas).

[jayakris]

Delhi situation: "Amit Shah: "On June 14, there were 9,937 Covid-19 beds in Delhi. 30,000 beds will be available by June 30. 8,000 beds are available in railway coaches, 8,000 more being added. The DRDO is setting up dedicated hospital with 250 ICU beds. The ITBP will run 10,000 bedded Radha Soami Satsang Beas Covid-19 centre." (IndiaToday)

So I got what I was asking for, earlier. Call the military in. Amit Shah got that done. By the way, this Radha Soami Satsang Beas center is huge! (I think it is ready, with the name Sardar Patel Covid center or something. Saw some pictures (see one here, of Army guys doing it).

But we need the Army called in, in Tamil Nadu. To do contact tracing and quarantining. Because the state is laying an egg, overwhelmed by their own reckless testing. +3940 today from 32.9K tests at 12% positivity.

But Delhi positivity dropped for the 7th day in a row. Now at 14.3 today. Fewer positives today with 20,080 tests.

[suresh]

Karnataka +1267 with Bengaluru +783.

IISc reports its first case.

[jayakris]

BBMP in Bengaluru is lost. What the hell were these idiots doing all this while? None of them followed what was happening in Mumbai 5 and 6 weeks ago, to prevent the problem in Bengaluru. Simply did not trace and test in late May and early June after unlocking, totally missed the growth that started, and now, in just over a 4 day period, they have some 1500 cases and don't have a clue where they are coming from. IDIOTS.

[Sin Hombre]

How many tests in BLR?