Coronavirus SARS-Cov2 (COVID-19)

[jayakris]

Kerala is down to +29.7K and positivity improved to 25.6% (the lowest in 2 weeks). So, things are getting better there, hopefully. Still a long way to go.

[Kumar]

Jay, do we have a breakdown for Covaxin/ covishield in the vaccination number?

[depleter]

Looks like this is from a BJP MP...some changes...Covishield's nos are decreased. And J&J's nos are added.

[SaniaFan]

Seriously, though, is it better to have them open for just 4 hours instead of 7 hours? Because the shorter the time they're open the greater the crowds, leading to greater spread. In Telangana stores are open from 6am-10am, and they are jammed with long check out queues. I take it that you are not suggesting a complete shut down of sweet shops for the duration of the lock down.

Very good point, my guess is they don’t want on people on street. Ideally having shops open for 10 hours is way safer then just 4 hours especially with our population density.

I think having those push cart vendor and socially distanced pavement shops are better as well. Why would I want to go inside super market and buy vegetables? There is already demand by citizens group to promote such shops in TN.

Why only sweet shops then. And why 10 to 5. Let them remain open like before for usual hours. I guess idea behind 4 hour thing is to push people towards doing pointed things. Meaning just buy stuff and go home and not do gup-sshup in the shop. Specially sweet shops would be where people will be eating at the shop. That needs to be discouraged.

[depleter]

Jay, do we have a breakdown for Covaxin/ covishield in the vaccination number?

Covaxin 18M+, Covishield 163M+

[Kumar]

Jay, do we have a breakdown for Covaxin/ covishield in the vaccination number?

Covaxin 18M+, Covishield 163M+

How about a weekly or monthly breakdown? Was just curious, if there is drop in both Covaxin or is it all covishield.
Based on the screenshot from your post, we should at least expect 80 million doses in June? Assuming that there is a month lead time between manufacturing and administration?
Do we know if JJ vaccine is being manufactured locally?

Just curious if the new vaccines that are on phase 2 and phase 3 trials are they for original virus or Newer variants (UK variant)

[jai_in_canada]

Seriously, though, is it better to have them open for just 4 hours instead of 7 hours? Because the shorter the time they're open the greater the crowds, leading to greater spread. In Telangana stores are open from 6am-10am, and they are jammed with long check out queues. ...

Very good point, my guess is they don’t want on people on street. Ideally having shops open for 10 hours is way safer then just 4 hours especially with our population density.

I think having those push cart vendor and socially distanced pavement shops are better as well. Why would I want to go inside super market and buy vegetables? There is already demand by citizens group to promote such shops in TN.

Why only sweet shops then. And why 10 to 5. Let them remain open like before for usual hours. I guess idea behind 4 hour thing is to push people towards doing pointed things. Meaning just buy stuff and go home and not do gup-sshup in the shop. Specially sweet shops would be where people will be eating at the shop. That needs to be discouraged.

The best way is to decide which shops are essential and keep them open as usual. That would limit it to shops selling food and medicines. Liquor and sweet shops - it's a judgement call if they are deemed to be essential. No in-store eating/drinking. Take your stuff, pay for it and go. Limit the number of people in indoor shops at any one time. Home delivery could encouraged - for a fee (there by creating some jobs). And as Kumar says, allow push cart vendors and outdoor road side vendors to operate as normal. Do all that but keep them open as usual, or maybe eve longer so people don't do rush buying or panic buying. Close malls, movies, and shops selling electronics, clothing, shoes, toys, hardware, automotive etc. or limit those.

That would be my recommendation if any one bothered to hire me as consultant.

[jayakris]

Jay, do we have a breakdown for Covaxin/ covishield in the vaccination number?

Covaxin 18M+, Covishield 163M+

How about a weekly or monthly breakdown? Was just curious, if there is drop in both Covaxin or is it all covishield.

I have not kept the data on that, Kumar. Not sure if it is released regularly by the Government either. Depleter's numbers are what we have.

[jayakris]

Why only sweet shops then. And why 10 to 5. Let them remain open like before for usual hours. I guess idea behind 4 hour thing is to push people towards doing pointed things. Meaning just buy stuff and go home and not do gup-sshup in the shop. Specially sweet shops would be where people will be eating at the shop. That needs to be discouraged.

Hey, the Bengalis love their rasagollas. "They have Covid? Let them have rasagollas" said Mamata Antoinette ... But they did this in Bengal during the first lockdown too. The sweets shops were the priority. Funny!!

That's a good point on the 4 hour thing, that it may avoid people planning multiple activities. I don't think that is the reason why the policy-makers did it though. It is too intelligent for them to think of!!

[jayakris]

I have posted the weekly update of vaccination numbers and state ranks. This week was a teeny tiny bit better than last week. Hopefully we have gone past the bottom of the vaccine availability curve and the "wave" will pick up now ...

[jayakris]

By the way, have any of you looked at the death numbers from Odisha? They keep showing around 20 deaths, and there are over 10K cases every day. What the heck? Everybody loves to talk about UP and Telangana and all that, but if any state is completely wrong on the death count, it is Odisha.

Meanwhile, it looks like we may not even hit +285K today. We are at 269K with Assam, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand to come.

Update: +279K with mainly only JH to come. Should be around +284K... The positivity today is at around 14% !!

[jayakris]

After a few days of no update, the Government updated the vaccine stock numbers with the states. Here is the press release with the full table of vaccine availability.

The numbers finally looks a bit healthy. There seems to be about 18M doses with the states, with 5M more reaching them within 3 days. It was in the range of 7 to 10.5M with the states during Apr 29th-May11th when they released numbers and I was tracking it. Looks like the vaccine stock has gone up with the states. There should be no problem for us to do somewhere in the 15M to 20M range this week, unlike the 12.5M we did the previous two weeks.

Okay, let's go!! Get the vaccinations back on track. Effectively we did about 45M doses less than we could've done in the last 5 weeks (we should be at least at 225M total doses instead of 180M, but for the vaccine procurement screw-up). Now let's speed it up.

[jayakris]

Wow, we only had +281.7K today, from 2029K tests @ 13.89% positivity (about 150+ from 1500+ tests to come from Ladakh)... I never imagined that it would drop that much this fast! Whoa .... Actually I guess i did say that I wouldn't be surprised if we are at 280K-300K by early next week.

Great job, Modiji!! You took steps to drop the numbers and got it done in 10 days flat. You caused it to go up with Kumbhmela, political rallies and inaction, so I give credit to you for dropping it too. (Purely in jest, I hasten to add! I know that he couldn't have done a damn thing about the wave and its rise, and he didn't do a damn thing to cause the drop either! )

But unfortunately, we have had two days of just above 4000 deaths, both caused by at least 300+ extra deaths reported by Maharashtra. I think these are reconciliation numbers. I think Maharashtra has more to add, that are stuck in spreadsheets. I won't be surprised if we get a 5000 death addition one fine day. At least Maharashtra reports whatever they find in their spreadsheets, sometimes weeks/months later. States like Odisha don't even seem to have any data in their spreadsheets!

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ICMR update: 316,423,658 total tests... Sunday tests: 1,573,515... Lab count: 2547

[jai_in_canada]

Wow, we only had +281.7K today, from 2029K tests @ 13.89% positivity (about 150+ from 1500+ tests to come from Ladakh)... I never imagined that it would drop that much this fast!

I was hoping that the incredibly steep rise of Wave 2.0 would be so unsustainable even for this virus that the infection curve would collapse on itself in the back end. I was being cautiously pessimistic, though, for my own mental health. The hyper fast spread might have infected most of the vulnerable population and so there might be no place to go for the virus. If that's the case then we should see a just as steep drop, instead of a plateau and then building on to another wave. But the one thing that we can predict about this virus is that it's unpredictable. So it's anyone's guess what happens next.

Great job, Modiji!! You took steps to drop the numbers and got it done in 10 days flat. You caused it to go up with Kumbhmela, political rallies and inaction, so I give credit to you for dropping it too.

Hehehe! Nothing but crickets in the media. The press have serious (intentional) attention deficit disorder. The sure sign that the peak was over 10 days ago was to look at the headlines in the major International media outlets. One day it was all doom and disaster India, and the very next day it was "Biden's dog bit a Secret Sevice agent" or some silliness like that.

But unfortunately, we have had two days of just above 4000 deaths, both caused by at least 300+ extra deaths reported by Maharashtra.

It could be reconciliation timing or it could just be that death stats trail new case numbers by a couple of weeks.

States like Odisha don't even seem to have any data in their spreadsheets!

Yeah, well, those sheets are nicely spread out on beds and they're taking a nice snooze. That's the only Odisha data on those spread sheets.

[jai_in_canada]

By the way, have any of you looked at the death numbers from Odisha? They keep showing around 20 deaths, and there are over 10K cases every day. What the heck? Everybody loves to talk about UP and Telangana and all that, but if any state is completely wrong on the death count, it is Odisha.

Odisha is making Telangana look good??! That's like saying Fauci is making Bill Gates look good!