Coronavirus SARS-Cov2 (COVID-19)

[depleter]

Bharat Biotech's Covaxin becomes the first Indian Vaccine candidate to enter phase III trails. With this a total of 10 vaccine candidates are in phase III around the world. They are expecting the vaccine to come into the market in Q2 of 2021.

[jayakris]

Bharat Biotech's Covaxin becomes the first Indian Vaccine candidate to enter phase III trails. With this a total of 10 vaccine candidates are in phase III around the world. They are expecting the vaccine to come into the market in Q2 of 2021.

It looks like there won't be a vaccine problem (assuming that the Oxford vaccine will show similar efficacy as Moderna and Pfizer). How fast people can be vaccinated is the issue now. Move heaven and earth to make it faster, because otherwise, everybody else around the world will be free of it by 2022 and India will keep going for an extra year or two, suffering all the associated economic impacts.

Im getting very concerned now about a second wave, which I think will hit India in the coming months, seeing that every place has been getting the second and third waves around the world. Korea has just started having their third wave. They could not shut the door on it after the second wave like they did on the first wave. India is nowhere near shutting the door after the first wave (only dropped to 4% of the peak... EDIT: 40% of the peak) and I think many places are showing a tendency to get started on a second wave. This is a long-drawn process and it will keep going for a long time, so the earliest we can vaccinate, the better.

[sameerph]

Im getting very concerned now about a second wave, which I think will hit India in the coming months, seeing that every place has been getting the second and third waves around the world. Korea has just started having their third wave. They could not shut the door on it after the second wave like they did on the first wave. India is nowhere near shutting the door after the first wave (only dropped to 4% of the peak) and I think many places are showing a tendency to get started on a second wave. This is a long0drawn process and it will keep going for a long time, so the earliest we can vaccinate, the better.

How only 4 % drop ? Daily cases were about 95K at peak right and now about half of that. Also active cases too around half of that at peak which I think was reached on 18th September.

[jayakris]

^^^^ Sorry... 40... not 4... I meant "dropped only to 40% of the peak"... Typo!

Meanwhile, we had a +46.3K today, from about 1156K tests at 4.00% positivity. Generally doing quite all right. Haryana will hopefully not go up much more (Rajasthan too)... Keeping the fingers crossed. Delhi is hopefully starting to go down, but not sure... Both Bhopal and Indore area to the western part of Madhya pradesh are showing some growth. Small numbers though. Vdodara/Rajkot in Gujarat too... Let us see how next week goes, because this week picked up quite a bit of the cases that were missed a few days earlier due to Diwali.

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ICMR Update: 130,657,808 total tests... Friday tests: 1,066,022 ... Lab count: 2126

[depleter]

It looks like there won't be a vaccine problem (assuming that the Oxford vaccine will show similar efficacy as Moderna and Pfizer). How fast people can be vaccinated is the issue now. Move heaven and earth to make it faster, because otherwise, everybody else around the world will be free of it by 2022 and India will keep going for an extra year or two, suffering all the associated economic impacts.

The government has said multiple times now that they would be getting some 500-600million doses by July 2021 through which they would vaccinate 25-30crore people. They started identifying the people to vaccinate long ago. It will include all the frontline workers, people above 50 years of age and people with co morbidities who are below 50 years of age. The health minister said in a recent interview that he is confident of getting the vaccine in 3 months. So may be they are expecting to start vaccination sometime in feb. So, they are estimating of vaccinating 25-30 crore people in 6months. Now the main question I have here is how much would the immunity last. If it last too low then there would be a problem.

Found a good article on how the government would go about the vaccination.
SMS, digital certificate, schools as booths in blueprint for Covid vaccine drive next year
https://indianexpress.com/article/india ... r-6873317/

An SMS delivered to the beneficiary days before vaccination, detailing the time and place; a QR code certificate, generated after each dose; and, health facilities involving the large network of schools, on the lines of elections, in the immunisation drive to ensure speedy access to the vaccine.“In the vaccination drive for Covid-19, one would be going below the facility level. When we say facility level, we mean either PHC or CHC or a health sub-centre or a district hospital; but in this case, you would be working on the analogy of conducting an election… Therefore, a sub-facility, may be a school, like an election booth on a day of the election, will have to be roped in,” the sources said.

A decision, sources said, has been taken to add a key feature to the eVIN (Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network) — an indigenously developed technology that tracks vaccine stocks digitally — that will track the beneficiary, the person who will be vaccinated.

“The expert group is looking at the enhancement of digital e-VIN platform; the enhancement is adding the module on beneficiary tracking. This feature is presently not there in the existing platform; at present, the platform has procurement, storage in 28,000 odd cold chain storage facilities, tracking their temperature, and going ahead, tracking their movement from storage point to the health facility or sub facility,” sources said.

This electronic platform enables one to schedule vaccination sessions; once a session is scheduled, then the system generates an SMS that is delivered to the beneficiary. It will have details of date, time and venue when he or she will be vaccinated,” sources said.

“Once the person is vaccinated, and if there is no adverse event following the vaccination, a QR-based digital certificate will be generated, again automatically by the system,” sources said.

The government, sources said, will also be integrating the flagship initiative of the Ministry of Electronics & IT – DigiLocker – whereby beneficiaries will have an option to store digital certificates.“There will be an option with the individual to store the QR-based digital certificate of vaccination in a DigiLocker, which is again a government facility,” sources said. This platform will provide access to authentic documents and enable the government to verify the data directly from beneficiaries after obtaining user consent.

[jayakris]

^^ At lease they are doing something. Hopefully the plans will work, but nothing ever goes too smoothly in India though.

Meanwhile we had +45.2K today... From 1166K tests, at a very good 3.88% positivity. Maharashtra suddenly showed 84K tests today, which was nice. Maybe they are testing some governement employees, teachers etc.

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ICMR Update: 131,733,134 total tests... Saturday tests: 1,075,326.. Lab count: 2129

[jayakris]

Maharashtra has suddenly started testing a lot more people!!! ... They had 85K tests yesterday and 92.5K tests today for a 6.8% positivity... Mumbai did 16.3K tests today at 6.9% positivity for 1135 cases and 19 deaths (BMC numbers)! It is great news. Just at the right time when we needed to start worrying about when Maharashtra will start the second wave. The higher level of testing will certainly help delay it and reduce the severity.

Does anybody know what is going on? Rajesh or Uddhav suddenly had an epiphany, after 8 months of sukha sushupti (blissful slumber)?

(Meanwhile, the idiots in Kerala are still unable to do testing over 60K and can't reduce the positivity below 10, a whole 6 weeks after Kerala reached its peak in early October. Down from a 7-day average of 8500 to 5300 but still getting positivity at 10%. That is pathetic inefficiency of the state that is good at bragging and acting holier-than-thou but clueless most of the time. Stop wasting time on quarantining, and just test the hell out of the people, damnit!)

EDIT: So we had +44.4K today... From 1056K tests at a very good 3.88% positivity. The testing numbers have been on the high side the last 4 days. I think basically we may be picking up a lot of cases that were missed during the 3-4 days of Diwali period late last week. Anyway, the 7-day averages have gone back up over 40K now... Hopefully it will again start reducing from this coming week. But then again, we are probably seeing the second wave starting in Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Indore, Bhopal and maybe Mumbai. So we may not go down much except in Delhi and Kerala. Who knows!

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ICMR Update: 132,582,730 total tests... Sunday tests: 849,596. Lab count: 2129

[depleter]

^^ At lease they are doing something. Hopefully the plans will work, but nothing ever goes too smoothly in India though.

I am not at all expecting this to go through smoothly.
Though my concerns are not at all related to cold chains and logistics. They will manage that somehow. Even with all the measures which they currently thought, I am still expecting a huge mess during the vaccination program with huge corruption and vaccines going to wrong persons. I can easily see vaccines being bought by rich persons for their children etc.

[jayakris]

^^^ Definitely. Testing was something nobody was thrilled to do, so there wasn't as much corruption in it... But when it is vaccines, I am sure the poor people will be the last to get it, in the end. Vaccines will just disappear in hospitals to safe fridges kept for those who can pay

Meanwhile, a whole week after Amit Shah announced that Delhi testing would increase, there is no sign of any increase in test numbers. The talk last week as that the tests would go up by Friday. Delhi is still doing what they were doing for months, that's it... And Rajasthan is so massively screwing up on testing that it is not even funny (just 15K shown today, at a 20+ positivity). Somebody needs to go after Rajasthan, Kerala, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland to get more tests done. We really needed Feluda now, but I guess nobody wants to manufacture it in large volumes?

[Atithee]

There should be no excuse now.

Now, get free RT-PCR test in Delhi, report within 6 hours.

The Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) test, considered the most accurate worldwide, will now be available for free in Delhi

https://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india/ ... ils-666921

[jayakris]

^^^ But will people take the tests? Who knows. Hope they will all take care of themselves....

Meanwhile, we had a +37.4K today... Got 3.82% positivity, from about 980K tests, the highest we have done on a Sunday in 6 weeks. Not bad!... Since the last weekend had low numbers, the 7day average again went up a bit, now to 43.3K per day. I hope we are done picking up the missing cases from the Diwali period... One more day of rise on the 7-day average from lower Diwali period testing is espected, but from Wednesday onward, we should see if we will have a rising trend or a dropping trend in daily cases. Tough to say. We have second waves starting in many places, but not with huge numbers yet. Delhi and Kerala need to be dropping slowly to counterbalance it... I am curious to know where we go from here. The festival period, and the cold weather in places from western Madhya pradesh to the north and west are adding cases.

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ICMR Update: 133,682,275 total tests... Monday tests: 1,099,545... Lab count: 2134

[Kumar]

I am not at all expecting this to go through smoothly.
Though my concerns are not at all related to cold chains and logistics. They will manage that somehow. Even with all the measures which they currently thought, I am still expecting a huge mess during the vaccination program with huge corruption and vaccines going to wrong persons. I can easily see vaccines being bought by rich persons for their children etc.

This are experimental vaccines! So if privileged people wants to go to front of line, so be it! Further if we think that rich people will be ready to fork huge amount of cash why not just set aside few thousands of doses and sell it at very high cost ?

[jaydeep]

This are experimental vaccines! So if privileged people wants to go to front of line, so be it! Further if we think that rich people will be ready to fork huge amount of cash why not just set aside few thousands of doses and sell it at very high cost ?

Agree with Kumar. Vaccine hesitancy will be a bigger issue after availability of vaccine.

Vaccine hesitancy could grip large populations across world: Expert

[prasen9]

There is an easy solution. Pay people to take it. Pay people to take the vaccine. You can fine people too. But, it is easier the other way around. And, then put in a covid-tax . Different countries will, of course, have different solutions. China can just make it mandatory. Japan can perhaps shame people into doing the right thing. In some crazy chaotic countries, whatever you do may not help because even the payments may not be reaching the people and hence, they will not care. Etc.

(No, I am not a tax and spend Democrat. I am actually opposing increasing taxes in the board where I serve. And, not because I do not want to pay. The tax increases are quite small for me. But, because I think we should cut waste first.)

[PKBasu]

The improving trend in daily cases has reversed in the past 7-10 days. Slightly troubling.