Coronavirus SARS-Cov2 (COVID-19)

[jayakris]

And country-wide lockdowns for big countries are too crude a tool. I am for lockdowns but only partial to the extent it is necessary and in areas where the disease is raging with travel restrictions into that area too. At other places, you have graded lockdowns. Medium risk, allow people to have 50% occupancy. Etc.

True. In hindsight, this all seem petty clear. The lockdowns only help in slowing things down to prevent healthcare capacity issues, and buying time to get the testing and quarantining schemes/infrastructure up and running. Then things need to be relaxed. In some ways, India did quite fine in the end. If we had a bit more experience, we would not have panicked as much, and could've avoided the deep economic losses with more staggered lockdowns. But we will survive, even on the economic front, from how things look as of now... Anyway, we certainly did about the best job I could've imagined in preventing deaths. We didn't even get to 1/4th or maybe even 1/10th of the deaths that the rest of the world was predicting for India (I mean, what the Indian posterior orifices writing for foreign press were predicting )

[prasen9]

We should actively encourage mask wearing and physical distancing. However, rural areas may be less restrictive with respect to regulating things than urban areas. And, restaurant indoor dining should close or be restricted before schools, etc. This is what we know now. Of course, I was equally clueless one year ago.

[jayakris]

Meanwhile, we had only 12.8K cases on Tuesday, from about 791K tests at 1.61% positivity... It was 6.3K in KER, 2.4K in MAH and just 4.1K elsewhere... 138 deaths... The 7-day average fell by 147 to 13.4K...

Due to the Republic Day holiday, there were almost no vaccinations. Final count from late night Tuesday was just +5671 to 2,029,480 total.

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ICMR Update: 193,613,120 total tests... Tuesday tests: 550,426... Decent number considering it was a full Holiday. But it should be a low case total on Wednesday

[Kumar]

When this all came out, we kept our packages outside in sun for 2-3 hours, used Clorox to wipe it and then use gloves to open the package! Now my kids open the package right away

I feel that infection through touch surfaces is probably over blown! I understand the initial precautions because we knew nothing! For me the fact that hair stylist had COVID, but did not give it to any of their 100+ clients with all of them wearing masks is a best argument for masks!

Plastics has gained so much prominence in the past year with lot of shops refusing reusable bags! There are probably some long term negative consequences as well

[Atithee]

Now, China will literally be a pain in the ass!

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/wor ... 478446.cms

[jayakris]

^^^ Yikes. No fun

Meanwhile, partly due to reduced testing and partly due to falling numbers, we only had +11.6K today in India, from about 681K tests @ 1.70%... About half of that was in Kerala (5.66K), some in MAH (2.17K) and only 3.7K elsewhere... India was only 13th in the world in new cases, and only 18th in deaths today (123 deaths). The 7-day daily average also fell by 532 to 12.9K. Actually Kerala's average has not gone up in the last three days as well. Let's hope that it is a positive sign (but positivity is not down, so it is possibly a false positive sign)

We did just under 300K vaccinations by 6 pm (299,299)... Hopefully over 350K by night time. [EDIT: 326,499 was the final count. 2,355,979 total]

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ICMR Update: 194,338,773 total tests... Wednesday tests: 7,25,653... Lab count: 2360

[Atithee]

50% cap for movie halls lifted, pools open to all

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ind ... 489980.cms

Let’s see what happens.

[jayakris]

50% cap for movie halls lifted, pools open to all.
Let’s see what happens.

Probably a calculated risk. I mean, the number of infected people (active patients) is such a small portion of the population now... Just 60K people out of 1200 million outside of Kerala and Maharashtra. That is 1 in 20,000 people. Even if we assume that we are not catching half of the infectious people, it is still 1 in 10,000 people who can infect others. Assuming that say half of them will be totally unaware of being infectious or will be selfish-enough to go to theaters even when they know they are infectious, that is again 1 in 20000 movie-goers who can give the disease to others.

And then, there are about 6800 single screen theaters (about 400 seats average) and 2100 multiplex screens (150 average seats?). So at 3 shows, maybe some 9 million people watch movies a day in India (am I right??)... That is probably about 450 people in theaters who can give Covid to others. There are probably say 4 people within 6 or 8 feet, but half of them have antibodies already (the movie-going "active" population have higher fraction of those with antibodies and India is probably at some 25% now). If we assume that at least half of those "infectable" people will wear masks in theaters, that is probably one person infected by each infectious person.

So, 450 people give it to 450 new people each day in theaters. If India is getting 4000 cases a day outside of Maharashtra and Kerala, those areas can expect a 11% rise in cases next week due to theater infections. And probably 7 additional deaths a day caused by movies. But then again, the entertainment from movies may prevent some 5 or 10 suicides by lonely people each day in India too... So deaths are probably a wash (big assumption)... Anyway, a lot more people get jobs (and food to survive and money to treat illnesses) from the movie industry. The benefits probably far outweigh the costs.

So my quick calculations show that we should open the theaters (outside Kerala and Eastern Maharashtra). Viola!

[Atithee]

This sounds like a consulting case interview response.

[jayakris]

^^^ Yeah, ICMR should pay me consulting money for doing that

[rajitghosh]

This sounds like a consulting case interview response.

Agreed. Send this to McKinsey or BCG guys for grilling the next set of MBA graduates.

[Atithee]

I’ll send it to Bain. The other B of the MBB.....

[jayakris]

I’ll send it to Bain. The other B of the MBB.....

I have no clue what you both are talking about...

Meanwhile, whoa... 491,615 vaccinated today until 6 pm. Looks like we will cross half a million today!! Good going, India!!! ... 2,847,608 total, so we are getting close to 3 million now.

Update: Forgot to mention yesterday that MP did 65K vaccinations on Wednesday, doubled their count, and moved up from the bottom group of 5 out of 22 bigger states, up to 12th... TN, BIH, JH, ASM, UP at the bottom as of last night... Will wait to see what changes after Thursday. Looks like UP and Assam improved on Thursday, as per the 6 pm update. Will wait for the late night report to come by Friday morning

Update: And we had +12.9K cases Thursday, from about 796K tests reported by the states at 1.62% positivity. Chhattisgarh went and found an extra 6039 cases and 30 deaths from earlier, on data reconciliation. WHAT?? How do that many cases go hiding somewhere (unless it is Maharashtra)? ... Anyway, excluding that, our weekly average fell by 231 to 12.7K... Kerala is showing a slight dropping trend for 4 days after a week of good rises. Hope this time the trend sticks on till the numbers go way down.

By the way, the I-am-the-King chief minister of the God-disowned state, Mr. Pinaray Vijayan, finally decided that Kerala will do 1 lakh tests a day with 75% RT-PCR. What the hell were you doing, sir, 2 months ago when you should've done this? Better late than never though...

[jayakris]

572,060 was the total vaccinations for Thursday. I didn't think we would get up close to 600K so fast. It is a peak day per week though. So, the total is up to 2,928,053...

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ICMR Update: 1,950,81,079 total tests... Thursday tests: 742,306

[depleter]

440,681 vaccinated till 7pm today and U.P accounted for more than 150k of them.