[OFF TOPIC] Coronavirus Pandemic

[nitinsanker 202]

  On 3/20/2020 at 7:10 AM, Olympian1010 said:

Thankfully we have our priorities straight here in LA 

 

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So in US the right wing buy guns... The left wing smoke cannabis....... Talk about guns and tokes... ?

[up and down 82]

  On 3/20/2020 at 7:41 AM, heywoodu said:

 

And potentially let it raise it's head back up once lockdown is lifted and the economy (and things like, you know, people's income) is totally destroyed. Let's hope the experts who predict that for countries that go on total lockdown are wrong.

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Yes have to agree with you that lots of people around the whole world income is affected when lockdown is imposed. It is tough time.

[heywoodu 15,353]

  On 3/20/2020 at 7:10 AM, Olympian1010 said:

Thankfully we have our priorities straight here in LA 

 

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We can all laugh about it, but there's a pretty good point behind it: do we really want to give extra business opportunities for shady/criminal street dealers? They'll be active anyway of course, but every little thing that helps keep their numbers in check counts.

[Olympian1010 8,073]

  On 3/20/2020 at 7:45 AM, heywoodu said:

 

We can all laugh about it, but there's a pretty good point behind it: do we really want to give extra business opportunities for shady/criminal street dealers? They'll be active anyway of course, but every little thing that helps keep their numbers in check counts.

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Yep, that is one of the biggest reasons we legalized cannabis in the first place. Plus, there are actual benefits to cannabis, which might actually be helpful for people in a time like this. 

[Olympian1010 8,073]

California is officially under statewide quarantine by the way.

[up and down 82]

Interesting news online.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-51922204

 

Coronavirus: Why is India testing so little?

The world's second-most populous country has reported about 182 infections

 

"We have a simple message to all countries - test, test, test," World Health Organisation (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva earlier this week.

 

He was alluding to the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed more than 8,600 people and infected more than 207,000 in at least 159 countries.

 

"All countries should be able to test all suspected cases, they cannot fight this pandemic blindfolded," he said.

 

With 182 reported infections and four deaths so far, is India taking this advice seriously? Is the world's second-most populous country testing enough?

 

The jury is out on this one. India had tested some 14,175 people in 72 state-run labs as of Thursday evening - one of the lowest testing rates in the world. The reason: the country has limited testing. So, only people who have been in touch with an infected person or those who have travelled to high-risk countries, or health workers managing patients with severe respiratory disease and developing Covid-19 symptoms are eligible for testing.

 

Coronavirus: Is India prepared for an outbreak?
Why is a densely populated country with more than a billion people testing so little? The official assumption is the disease has still not spread in the community. As early "evidence" health authorities say 826 samples collected from patients suffering from acute respiratory disease from 50 government hospitals across India between 1 and 15 March tested negative for coronavirus. Also, hospitals have not yet reported a spike in admissions of respiratory distress cases.

 

"It is reassuring that at the moment there is no evidence of community outbreak," says Balram Bhargava, director of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). He believes Mr Ghebreyesus's advice is "premature" for India, and it would only "create more fear, more paranoia and more hype".

Dr Ramanan Laxminarayan: "India's going to be the next hot spot for this epidemic"
But experts are not so sure.

 

Many of them believe India is also testing below scale because it fears that its under-resourced and uneven public health system could be swamped by patients. India could be buying time to stock up on testing kits and add isolation and hospital beds. "I know mass testing is not a solution, but our testing appears to be too limited. We need to quickly expand to restrict community transmission," K Sujatha Rao, former federal health secretary and author of But Do We Care: India's Health System, told me.

 

What India can learn from the deadly 1918 flu
On the other hand, say virologists, random, on-demand testing will create panic and completely strain the feeble public health infrastructure. Increased and targeted "sentinel screening" of patients suffering from influenza and diagnoses in hospitals across the country can provide a better idea of whether there is community transmission, they say. "We need focused testing. We cannot do a China or Korea because we simply don't have the capacity," a senior virologist told me.

 

In many ways, it is all about India trying to battle a pandemic with limited resources. Experts talk about the country's success in defeating polio, combating small pox, successfully controlling the spread of HIV/Aids, and more recently H1N1 with rigorous surveillance, sharp identification of vulnerable people, targeted intervention, and an early engagement with the private sector to prevent disease spread.

 

Yet, coronavirus is one of the deadliest transmissible viruses in recent history. Every day lost in effective response means the looming danger of a surge in infections. India spends a paltry 1.28% of its GDP on health care, and that may begin to bite if there's a full-blown outbreak. Partial lockdowns in many cities - shutting schools, colleges, businesses and suspending some rail transport - proves that the government fears that community transmission of the virus might have begun.

The official assumption is the disease has still not spread in the community

 

Bracing for the inevitable, India is scaling up testing. Officials say existing labs are able to provide results in six hours and each lab has the capacity to test 90 samples a day which can be doubled. Fifty more state labs are expected to begin testing samples by the end of the week, bringing the total number of testing facilities to 122. Authorities claim that together, the labs will be able to test 8,000 samples a day - a significant scaling up. In addition, the government is planning to allow around 50 private labs to start testing, but they will take up to 10 days to procure kits. (Testing at state-run labs is free, and it is unclear whether the private labs will charge.)

 

Two rapid testing labs, capable of doing 400 tests a day, are expected to be operational by the end of the week. India has also placed orders for a million test kits, and will be possibly asking the WHO for a million more.

 

"On testing, the government response has been proportionate, taking into account scope, need and capacity," Henk Bekedam, WHO Representative to India told me. "We recognise that laboratory networks are expanding the scope and testing and they now include patients with severe acute respiratory infection and influenza-like illness detected through the surveillance system. It would also be important to look at 'atypical pneumonia' cases. If they are without any distinctive cause, then they need to be considered for testing."

 

India could be buying time to stock up on testing kits and add isolation and hospital beds
The weeks and months ahead will show whether these steps have been enough. "We cannot say India has escaped community transmission," Mr Bhargava says candidly. And if and when there is an explosion of infections and more sick people require hospitalisation, India will face formidable challenges.

 

India has eight doctors per 10,000 people compared to 41 in Italy and 71 in Korea. It has one state-run hospital for more than 55,000 people. (Private hospitals are out of reach for most people). The country has a poor culture of testing, and most people with flu symptoms do not go to doctors and instead try home remedies or go to pharmacies. There's a scarcity of isolation beds, trained nursing staff and medics, and ventilators and intensive care beds.

 

India's influenza cases peak during the monsoon season, and there is no reason why the coronavirus will not make a second coming, virologists say. "Given the way it is progressing in India, it seems it is about two weeks behind Spain and three weeks behind Italy. But that's the number of known cases. And without sufficient testing and shutting down large gatherings, the numbers could be a lot worse," Shruti Rajagopalan, economist and a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, told me.

 

India's traditional neglect of public healthcare will begin to bite if the disease spreads to its teeming small towns and villages. "This is a very unique and real public health challenge," says Ms Rao. And it's early days yet.

[Agger 1,664]

  On 3/20/2020 at 7:38 AM, heywoodu said:

 

Isn't it used by half the football teams in the world basically?  

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Quite a bit of them, yeah. But not by Man Utd (only back around the Munich Disaster) and then it's an absolutely terrible idea  

[dcro 10,210]

Highest number of new cases in China in about a week.

[heywoodu 15,353]

  On 3/20/2020 at 9:22 AM, dcro said:

Highest number of new cases in China in about a week.

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Here comes the post-lockdown peak.

[Fly_like_a_don 1,113]

  On 3/20/2020 at 7:53 AM, up and down said:

Interesting news online.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-51922204

 

Coronavirus: Why is India testing so little?

The world's second-most populous country has reported about 182 infections

 

"We have a simple message to all countries - test, test, test," World Health Organisation (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva earlier this week.

 

He was alluding to the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed more than 8,600 people and infected more than 207,000 in at least 159 countries.

 

"All countries should be able to test all suspected cases, they cannot fight this pandemic blindfolded," he said.

 

With 182 reported infections and four deaths so far, is India taking this advice seriously? Is the world's second-most populous country testing enough?

 

The jury is out on this one. India had tested some 14,175 people in 72 state-run labs as of Thursday evening - one of the lowest testing rates in the world. The reason: the country has limited testing. So, only people who have been in touch with an infected person or those who have travelled to high-risk countries, or health workers managing patients with severe respiratory disease and developing Covid-19 symptoms are eligible for testing.

 

Coronavirus: Is India prepared for an outbreak?
Why is a densely populated country with more than a billion people testing so little? The official assumption is the disease has still not spread in the community. As early "evidence" health authorities say 826 samples collected from patients suffering from acute respiratory disease from 50 government hospitals across India between 1 and 15 March tested negative for coronavirus. Also, hospitals have not yet reported a spike in admissions of respiratory distress cases.

 

"It is reassuring that at the moment there is no evidence of community outbreak," says Balram Bhargava, director of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). He believes Mr Ghebreyesus's advice is "premature" for India, and it would only "create more fear, more paranoia and more hype".

Dr Ramanan Laxminarayan: "India's going to be the next hot spot for this epidemic"
But experts are not so sure.

 

Many of them believe India is also testing below scale because it fears that its under-resourced and uneven public health system could be swamped by patients. India could be buying time to stock up on testing kits and add isolation and hospital beds. "I know mass testing is not a solution, but our testing appears to be too limited. We need to quickly expand to restrict community transmission," K Sujatha Rao, former federal health secretary and author of But Do We Care: India's Health System, told me.

 

What India can learn from the deadly 1918 flu
On the other hand, say virologists, random, on-demand testing will create panic and completely strain the feeble public health infrastructure. Increased and targeted "sentinel screening" of patients suffering from influenza and diagnoses in hospitals across the country can provide a better idea of whether there is community transmission, they say. "We need focused testing. We cannot do a China or Korea because we simply don't have the capacity," a senior virologist told me.

 

In many ways, it is all about India trying to battle a pandemic with limited resources. Experts talk about the country's success in defeating polio, combating small pox, successfully controlling the spread of HIV/Aids, and more recently H1N1 with rigorous surveillance, sharp identification of vulnerable people, targeted intervention, and an early engagement with the private sector to prevent disease spread.

 

Yet, coronavirus is one of the deadliest transmissible viruses in recent history. Every day lost in effective response means the looming danger of a surge in infections. India spends a paltry 1.28% of its GDP on health care, and that may begin to bite if there's a full-blown outbreak. Partial lockdowns in many cities - shutting schools, colleges, businesses and suspending some rail transport - proves that the government fears that community transmission of the virus might have begun.

The official assumption is the disease has still not spread in the community

 

Bracing for the inevitable, India is scaling up testing. Officials say existing labs are able to provide results in six hours and each lab has the capacity to test 90 samples a day which can be doubled. Fifty more state labs are expected to begin testing samples by the end of the week, bringing the total number of testing facilities to 122. Authorities claim that together, the labs will be able to test 8,000 samples a day - a significant scaling up. In addition, the government is planning to allow around 50 private labs to start testing, but they will take up to 10 days to procure kits. (Testing at state-run labs is free, and it is unclear whether the private labs will charge.)

 

Two rapid testing labs, capable of doing 400 tests a day, are expected to be operational by the end of the week. India has also placed orders for a million test kits, and will be possibly asking the WHO for a million more.

 

"On testing, the government response has been proportionate, taking into account scope, need and capacity," Henk Bekedam, WHO Representative to India told me. "We recognise that laboratory networks are expanding the scope and testing and they now include patients with severe acute respiratory infection and influenza-like illness detected through the surveillance system. It would also be important to look at 'atypical pneumonia' cases. If they are without any distinctive cause, then they need to be considered for testing."

 

India could be buying time to stock up on testing kits and add isolation and hospital beds
The weeks and months ahead will show whether these steps have been enough. "We cannot say India has escaped community transmission," Mr Bhargava says candidly. And if and when there is an explosion of infections and more sick people require hospitalisation, India will face formidable challenges.

 

India has eight doctors per 10,000 people compared to 41 in Italy and 71 in Korea. It has one state-run hospital for more than 55,000 people. (Private hospitals are out of reach for most people). The country has a poor culture of testing, and most people with flu symptoms do not go to doctors and instead try home remedies or go to pharmacies. There's a scarcity of isolation beds, trained nursing staff and medics, and ventilators and intensive care beds.

 

India's influenza cases peak during the monsoon season, and there is no reason why the coronavirus will not make a second coming, virologists say. "Given the way it is progressing in India, it seems it is about two weeks behind Spain and three weeks behind Italy. But that's the number of known cases. And without sufficient testing and shutting down large gatherings, the numbers could be a lot worse," Shruti Rajagopalan, economist and a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, told me.

 

India's traditional neglect of public healthcare will begin to bite if the disease spreads to its teeming small towns and villages. "This is a very unique and real public health challenge," says Ms Rao. And it's early days yet.

Expand  

I totally agree with this. India is hiding some 100 cases or so. From Wednesday I saw 195 cases even today government is like 195. Some channels say 209.However all state ministers are confirming cases every day at least 20-30. It's possible that recovered people are cut from the list but in the Total they are added again making active cases 170 or so.. At least 300+ I'm sure have corona and I'm not going to believe any website telling 190 or 200 even if the PM says.Also people asked to self quarantine aren't being tested, they're going out as if nothing exists.