In a representative democracy, you wouldn't lock down and force people to starve - you would lock down and provide income/food/capabilities for people to live regardless of their social/economic status.
locking down isn't why poor people hurt, locking down and doing nothing to feed them does.
It's like this pandemic is proving one thing - that we suck at democracy and we're not willing to do anything to fix it because we don't want to change how it works for so few when it doesn't work for exponentially more - as long as we're part of the so few, we'll turn a blind eye.
India has some of the hardest working people in the world, and it's a shame the way many have been treated by government programs. Government handouts have created a culture in which many of the poor are at the mercy of corrupt bureaucrats just to get by.
"What's that you say? Your rice allotment was 100 grams less than you're entitled to? Fuck you. Store is closed today. Hey everyone, thank smartass over here, nobody gets rice today."
This is government welfare here in India.
A lot of well off people in India and USA automatically think of poor people as losers or without agency. They then propose that government must help them. Guess what, other than a small fraction of poor people most DO NOT want that help. They would rather prefer to do what they want to do. Poor people do not want your food, clothing and shelter, they have their own desires. We can not possibly know what they are.
India is an extremely social country and lockdowns have much bigger costs for people. If people are angry and fed up and willing to risk their lives, I can understand. I do not think assurance of food or money per month will keep them indoors.
What we need is some humility to recognize that just because someone else has less money than we do, that does not reduce their self worth or gives us the right to know "what they need".
PS. Shortage of food was not a problem in India during last lockdown it is not a problem today either. Food Corporation of India has a record stockpile of rice right now.
And most poor people prefer free food over no food. You are right that most would prefer a dignified job and agency over their lives, but to say that people prefer to starve than to accept aid, or that it is just fine as a matter of policy to let people starve (or die of diarrhea as hundreds of indian children do each day as they don't have access to clean water) is just absurd. No one wants to watch their children die.
Again, i dont doubt your lived experience, but please do reflect on your views and whether they even remotely reflect reality.
Do you really believe the survival of our species is at stake?
There have been 1754 covid-19 deaths per million people in the USA since the start of the pandemic [0], a seemingly reliable number. That works out to 1 out of 570 people that have died of covid. Mostly older and less healthy folks.
Part of the problem may be that not everyone is that scared. Living in democracies we need to respect that.
I don't think people realize how bad it got and just how quickly we forget and forgive those who were in charge that led us down the path that almost led to certain failure.
So yeah, our species may have survived if you want to frame it as such to debate the words used more than the reality of what the words meant.
I intentionally chose the words I said because it was a disaster and to be honest, we still haven't really learned from it.
Ok, maybe we should back up. I objected to your "survival of your species" characterization of the pandemic, but am happy to agree to leave that aside, some hyperbole in the heat of the moment I guess. I wasn't sure, because it appears there are people who feel that way. Like you said, people overreacted, buying guns, stockpiling, afraid to leave the house, etc. Some people are still overreacting, expecting the worst at every turn.
As the science and data continue to roll in we find that this is not as bad as was once feared. Lately I've been reading the recent articles/studies on how this is an airborne aerosol, which means the cloth masks everyone have been wearing may not have made much of a difference. The CDC now appears to be trying to talk people down, letting them know that surface transmission is not a significant factor, that we don't need to wear masks outside, etc. It's may be the case where find out in the end that the lockdowns were a waste of time and that aggressive contact tracing was the only thing that worked.
This thread got into talking about democracy and lockdowns. A lot lot of people don't think this is as big a disaster as you do. 1 out of 570 people dead, skewing older with comorbidities, doesn't strike many people as a disaster. Many people don't accept the premise that the lockdowns are worth it, and therefore don't want to spend the money supporting those same lockdowns like you suggested. They would rather live their lives as close to normal as practical. They don't feel the need to assign political blame for a pandemic that caught almost the entire planet by surprise. They have a vote, the same as you. They feel just as strongly as you. Difficult situation, eh?
Your assumption is that what the USA went through, with the shutdowns is the worst-case scenario. I posit that it is not - things could have been far worse in terms of death, as well as second- and third-order effects on the economy, jobs and food security.
There is zero science supporting this. In fact, to the contrary, experts from the beginning expected this to peter out on its own [0]:
> 2019-nCoV joins the four coronaviruses now circulating in people. “I can imagine a scenario where this becomes a fifth endemic human coronavirus,” ... “We don’t pay much attention to them because they’re so mundane”
> Odds: Moderate. “I think there is a reasonable probability that this becomes the fifth community-acquired coronavirus,” Adalja said, something he expanded on in his blog. Webby agreed: “I have a little bit of hope that, OK, we’ll put up with a couple of years of heightened [2019-nCoV] activity before settling down to something like the other four coronaviruses.”
> Odds: Pretty good. What we may be seeing “is the emergence of a new coronavirus … that could very well become another seasonal pathogen that causes pneumonia,”
Your statement about "survival of the species" seems outlandish, according the the science I read. Your above reply "things could have been worse" is not an adequate defensse of such an alarmist statement.
Do you have any references supporting your position? oit appears so far that you do not.
You should keep in mind that not everyone shares your paranoia and want to get on with as much of their lives as possible. We live in democracies and other people will rightfully object to you imposing your views on all of them without better justification.
[0] https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-cor...
That wasn't me saying that; I'm not gp. I was only objecting to your comment that implicitly assumed a linear effect, and therefore concludes that things wouldn't have been bad without shutdowns
>> That works out to 1 out of 570 people hat have died of covid.
I do not think the "survival of the species" was at stake, but our 2020 lifestyles were at stake. Things could have gotten much worse, in a non-linear, exponential manner.
Systemic collapse does not mean societal collapse or the end of humanity, or even civilization. The collapse will be a horrible affair and it might take centuries to get back on track if things get real bad. Humanity would still be around, though, and we're not threatened as a species.
Why did you bring up systemic collapse? You made some pretty broad statements. Things like food shortages and civil unrest happen all the time, for lots of reasons. There's Syria, Somalia, the former Soviet Union, the Arab Spring, everywhere a war is fought, etc. It wouldn't be surprising for this pandemic (and/or lockdowns) to tip some country over the edge, somewhere. But maybe not. Hasn't happened yet.
I think it's curious that you had to throw a new worst-case scenario out there. I hear you saying "ok, the species will survive, but we could, worst case, collapse, horrible, for centuries". What are you thinking? Do you think something like that might happen in a developed country? Or in India? Wouldn't hospitals just triage patients, letting the old and sick die? Aren't most health care workers already vaccinated? Is it reasonable to think that a disease that has killed less than 0.175% of the population (USA, 1 in 570), mostly older and/or sicker, could possibly cause the collapse of important supplies or cause food shortages?
Do you ever wonder why some people seem to have a tendency to dwell on worst case scenarios, even ones that are pretty marginal? I assume that it's because we are emotional creatures, and fear is a powerful emotion. Probably good for the survival of the species :-)
> Do you think something like that might happen in a developed country?
Do I beleive it could happen? Yes, but it's quite unlikely, and it requires a series of fuck-ups from a lot of people. It's also more likely to happen in undeveloped countries:
> It wouldn't be surprising for this pandemic (and/or lockdowns) to tip some country over the edge, somewhere. But maybe not.
> Wouldn't hospitals just triage patients, letting the old and sick die?
I think you underestimate how pissed off people might get if the system they entrusted their relatives' care to suddenly decided to just let them manage on their own.
On a local level, things are messier - as you say, local governments fall every now and then and covid is just about as likely to trigger it as any other major issue.
I find it far more likely that it won't happen,though.
As for worst-case scenarios in general, I think it's simply a way for us to plan ahead. "Shit will happen. It might be rough. We'll manage because we though of it beforehand." And yes, it' probably good for the survival of the species. :D
You're trying to highlight something that doesn't exist.
You can get out of being poor. You cannot get out of being dalit[0].
> While their struggles are real they do not see themselves as losers but rather see themselves as strugglers who will eventually make it some day.
Only about 20% of Indians can afford to have even aspirations. About 66% cannot. 18% struggle to even survive. Newspaper? They would eat it. [1] (data from 2016)
> They then propose that government must help them. Guess what, other than a small fraction of poor people most DO NOT want that help.
The relationship between the government and the people in India is very different from what you are probably used to. It's true that many people in India don't want the government's "help", but that's because this "help" is usually exploitation. They'd be lucky to be left alone. [2]
> If people are angry and fed up and willing to risk their lives
You have to pass a certain threshold of awareness to be categorized as "willing". Most of these people have no idea what the consequences of their actions are. Almost a third(!) of the women in India cannot even read or write. [3]
> What we need is some humility to recognize that just because someone else has less money than we do, that does not reduce their self worth or gives us the right to know "what they need".
Should the same litmus test apply to your post about the Indian condition?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalit#Discrimination [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/482584/india-households-... [2] https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/governance/why-india-s-p... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_India
> Should the same litmus test apply to your post about the Indian condition?
Obviously. But my post is about not making assumptions about what poor people want and rather trust that they have an agency.
How many of the people that truly have no food to eat will go to vote?
Or, how easy are they to corrupt?
Americans love getting free shit, and hate giving anything away. We love getting tax cuts & refunds, stimulus checks, welfare, food stamps. But when we're not eligible to receive it, we hate giving away food stamps, welfare. Everyone thinks we pay too much tax, and doesn't want the state to do anything. But then we complain that the government isn't solving all our problems with all the money we aren't paying in taxes. To avoid all the complaints from directly taxing everyone, we tax alcohol and tobacco (in addition to income), but we don't tax corporate profits or rich people, and have a small sales tax compared to the EU.
America actually has a bit of a crisis of food. Tens of millions of families go hungry every year in the US. Yet we export hundreds of billions of dollars worth of (mostly) feed grain and corn. It's not that we're too proud to take hand-outs, we'd just rather let our neighbors starve.
I believe there is a term for this, "temporarily embarrassed millionaires"
I didn't realize that being a rich country with a developed economy was a pre-requisite to being a representative democracy.
Size of PM Cares fund was estimated to be $1.23 billion dollars[1] (from May 2020, the most recent source I could find). The size of India's food subsidy program is over 2 trillion dollars.[2]
So, PM Cares fund is less that 0.1% of the amount Indian government already spends on food subsidies.
>too uneducated to vote
What's the point of education when you form your opinions with such laziness?
Sources:
[1] https://www.indiaspend.com/pm-cares-received-at-least-1-27-b...
[2] https://www.financialexpress.com/economy/increase-pds-price-...
The US can print trillions of dollars in an emergency as a world reserve currency. Most countries cannot do this.
The idea that India could just pay 1.4 billion people not to work for a year doesn't seem like a realistic proposal.
Did people read the FT article at all?
And the whole point of lockdown was to prevent people from performing these movements.
I don't see a good solution here.
The more urban a place the more "just in time" everything is because the space is more valuable doing literally anything other than warehousing calories
It's not that they can't afford it - it's that they're unwilling to actually leverage the wealth of their country to do it. I seriously don't understand the thinking that resources are still so scarce that an entire country like India somehow can't afford to meet the basic needs of its people (let alone the US). If the resources exist you figure out how to get them to the people that need them. Not doing this is how you get unrest, a massive rise in crime and eventually coups, wars, etc. Democracy and capitalism are not givens - they are very much still experiments that can and do fail.
As for those who live off of agriculture, you can ensure basic self sufficiency.
Necessary food production is generally outside of cities.
All Healthcare except for what is immediately necessary similarly is not needed, same for vehicle repair and so on.
Keep in mind, this is only for a very short period of time. You don't have to deploy anywhere near the population needed for a sustainable organization.
For the US for example, there are 55 million "essential workers". 11 million of those are in agriculture or restauration (so either outside of a city or dispensable). 10 million are in finance or residential/commercial facilities services, most of which is preemptible for a few weeks. 4.5 million are in governmental services which can largely either be done remotely or preempted for a few weeks. Realistically you're looking at 25 million or so when you cut down on everything that isn't necessary and have the military take over a lot of the work.
If you want to see what thay looks like, you can look at the Wuhan lockdowns and to a lesser extent various strict lockdowns in third world countries.
I mean, lets be real, if they don't serve the will of the people then the economy and government is short term and lockdowns were never the problem, but a symptom...
Why frame it as money printing? Does everything that can help people have to be pejorative?
Besides, the lockdowns were completely unwarranted. Sure, at the beginning, no one seemed to know how dangerous this thing is, but we have learned quite a bit about it since and it does not merit the sweeping lockdowns in place. Locking down and protecting the vulnerable like those with comorbidities, absolutely, but not everyone. It is not that dangerous of a virus!
Sadly, this has proven to be a successful experiment in how media-driven FUD, sloppy reporting, and blatant misinformation can make people behave irrationally. We know the tallies are bogus because of the bad monetary incentives and methods used to determine whether someone's death counts as a COVID death, we know that something like a half a percent of the population is really affected, we know that the side effects of the lockdown are very concerning (rising suicide, undiagnosed cancers and other illnesses because people fear medical facilities). This is all pure political opportunism at this point.
You want to help the poor? Get rid of the lockdown. The longer you wait, the harder it is going to be to admit that there's nothing to fear (frankly, that ship has kind of sailed; people will ask "well, if it isn't that dangerous, why have we been under lockdown?"). You need a believable exit. (Enter the vaccine.)
What you described is exactly what happened in China and Vietnam: one short strict lockdown while taking care of people's material necessities. Unsurprisingly, both countries have eliminated community transmission.
There may well be some cross immunity in some communities due to previous coronavirus circulations. And the numbers in China are not all that credible - one guy at my work had three of four grandparents die of "some winter cold" in March last year. It will be quite some time before the numbers in China become clear I think.
You are mistaking democracy with other virtues. income/food/capabilities do not come from thin air, it is eventually generated by people and under lockdowns when most economy is at a standstill this is incredibly difficult. So even the "redistribution" does not work that well. India is also a far poorer country so there is not much to distribute in first place.
> locking down isn't why poor people hurt, locking down and doing nothing to feed them does.
What we need is some humility that we do not fully understand what others need and the only way to find it out is by giving people freedom. Poor people in India right now do not want anyone's alms. They are more interested into going out, doing what they want to do rather than just get food clothing and shelter. The previous lockdown did ensure that everyone had food clothing and shelter through government and private charity efforts but people were in general pretty upset.
I think we should stop assigning blame to democracy just because realities don't match up our expectations, partly because we are not infinitely smart to understand what other people want.
Learned helplessness is what they call it.
Be careful not to generalize that all democracies have done a poor job just because some have.
The notion that we can't do this, is the one i have problems with because its absurd.
The money a government gives to citizens must come from somewhere. They could liquidate assets owned by the government, borrow it from another government, take it from entities who are subject to the government's authority (taxes), or - what I assume you're getting at - just make more of it.
That last one isn't as simple as it sounds because it doesn't increase the cumulative value of the currency. Printing dollars is like dividing a pizza into more and more slices. It doesn't increase the amount of pizza. Inflation is a very real problem that has annihilated economies.
In any case, value fiat money is not a product of rarity, it is a statement of the value of future tax receipts. Money encodes/is an exchange marker for work done or promises of work to be done.
We could have done a blanket shutdown for 1 month, paid everybody to stay home and it would have cost multiple order magnitudes less than the current nightmare approach, that not only still impacted the economy, also caused 100's of thousands of dead people. This was a preventable catastrophe, caused because corporations are better represented and more important to our politicians than actual citizens. Thanks Citizen's United for legalizing blatant corruptions /s
$600 a week at the beginning of the pandemic through July and then $300 a week this year, in addition to a second $2000 payment that went out to more than furloughed or unemployed people.
Sure, if you live with mom and pop and you got laid off from a job and had a place to fall back onto, yippee
If you live in pretty much any major city and you're the breadwinner then it doesn't cover rent/mortgage.
We froze foreclosures, so there are estimated millions pending. Unemployment is still in pre-pandemic numbers - all though improving.
I think our reliance on "job" to live is problematic when a virus doesn't care about the societal ramifications of a job.
I think we should talk more broader UBI programs and talk about what countries did that worked... do a huge retrospective and make things better for the future.
That easily covered their mortgage and their lifestyle, even in this expensive city, and was in no way sustainable. They had no interest in looking for work while they were receiving those benefits, but now that the benefits are disappearing they've started looking for work again.
There's houses available in much of the country for $100,000 or less. I'm fine arguing that people can have the option to struggle paying high rent or move, we don't need to pay the high rent just because they prefer the place.
Just no, not unless you live in a luxury dwelling or location. Here’s an example place I used to live long ago. Centrally located, next to the major highways, and not unsafe. It’s old and not fancy, but under $1000 and your living expenses can be much lower than that with a roommate. https://www.livechevychase.com/floorplans
(also, every single room but an efficiency is sold out and there is no pricing on their 3 bedrooms)
No, we've been desperately waiting for vacinnes after being repeatedly promised there will be plently for everyone ("look at all these contracts we've signed!") while they pay you off with massive borrowing that someone is going to be responsible for when the music stops.
Meanwhile Texas, the poster-child for bad behaviour, is headed back to normal.
Most of us are staying home still, in the major cities we collectively wear masks regardless of our goofy gov. Large places of employment still aren't opening offices and many that are talking about opening are doing so with the realization it won't be like it used to be...
Combined that’s a decent chunk of the population getting back out. I think it’s still quiet compared to normal, but it sure seems like one giant party compared to the last year. It’s really hard to subjectively judge these things.
Fifty THOUSAND people died in Texas. I'm not sure how anyone can hold it up as a *good" comparison.
Ranking 16th worst out of 198 is not an enviable or "good" place to be.
'McGowan reached his breaking point when Redfield asked him to stop the deportation of a dog, according to people who worked closely with him.
In late June, a Peace Corps volunteer evacuated from West Africa was told that the rabies vaccine of her dog, a terrier mix named Socrates, was not valid. Rabies vaccines are marked with pink dye, and a photo of Socrates’ vaccination showed a clear liquid, a CDC email said. Border authorities said Socrates had to be sent back to Africa, revaccinated and quarantined there for 28 days before returning. The Peace Corps volunteer sparked a #SaveSocrates outcry on social media.
CDC experts told McGowan that the last foreign dog with rabies that slipped through had cost more than $500,000 in public health charges, including shots for 44 people who had been near the animal, an email shows. Making an exception threatened to render the policy unenforceable for the 500 animals that are deported every year.
At a time when the pandemic had killed nearly 130,000 Americans, McGowan spent an hour and a half on the phone with the HHS general counsel and other senior officials to figure out how to make an exception for a dog. All the while, he told colleagues, his mind kept returning to the fact that the same administration was using the CDC’s quarantine power to deport thousands of children at the border with Mexico.
Later that day, Brian Harrison, the HHS chief of staff and a former labradoodle breeder, announced the liberation of Socrates. Secretary Azar tweeted out the news with the hashtag #SaveSocrates.
Privately, McGowan fumed.
“He was sad, downtrodden and defeated,” a colleague said. “This was really the final straw for him: How we are going to let dogs in, but basically we’re going to require children to be carted off and out of the country? And all in the name of public health.”
McGowan resigned in August.
The following month, Caputo took a medical leave after he hosted a live video on his personal Facebook in which he accused “deep state scientists” of “sedition” and warned his followers to stock up on ammunition in anticipation of political upheaval. In that rant, which was reported by The New York Times, Caputo said CDC scientists had only changed out of their sweatpants to meet at coffee shops and plot “how they’re going to attack Donald Trump next.”'
I'm horrified you can waive it away as "fairly typical" for a western country when Texas has a deaths/1 million population 3 times that of Canada, 4 times that of Denmark and on and on.
Culture does not change in a day even at desperate times.
Government should ban gathering and events.
Even my extended family is planning to attend a wedding despite huge risk in doing so, why? In India attending someone's wedding is very important and basis for building social wealth. If you don't attend others wedding, they'll not attend yours. As simple as that, all families live in this fear of having no one attending wedding of their daughter or son that they take this massive risk to arrived at the wedding of their friends and relatives.
Only strict government rule can fix this, otherwise I've heard misinformed people claiming that Coronavirus is just a hoax by government and no one is dying, why can't you attend the wedding if the everyone is coming. Unfortunately, you can't teach the people who hold this view, you only lose to them if you try to use reason.
I also wish that governments try to inform more, I don't really see anyone saying "Ventilate more!" like this research results suggest they should: https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-10-28/a-room-a-bar-a... .
I wish people gave a bit more shit about protecting others properly. The people who don't wear masks properly are the ones who think only about themselves ("this mask won't protect me anyway") and don't care about how masks help protect the people around them.
People who refuse to wear a mask around others, or intentionally wear one poorly are just telegraphing how little they care for other people.
[1]https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0329-COVID-19-Vacci...
0. To prevent fresh distribution of constantly mutating variants so that we don't lose this wonderful chance we currently have of ending the pandemic. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/health/coronavirus-...
1. Signaling to intransigent anti-vax anti-maskers that wearing a mask is the right thing to do for the sake of others, because social messaging works.
2. Making it harder for intransigent anti-vax anti-maskers to blend in.
3. Informing others around you in a communicating society that you care about them, because nobody but you knows that you're vaccinated.
4. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/belt-and-suspende...
b. It costs you nothing.
I'll probably think of other reasons later, but these seem good enough for now.
And the cost isn’t zero. It prevents others from seeing my face which is a critical component of social interaction. This was an acceptable cost last fall when cases were surging and we had no cure, but now it’s just ridiculous. I’ll get downvoted I’m sure, but if the mask mandates continue past May it’ll be a very strong sign that they were never primarily about following the science.
The first reason I gave was medical. Maybe you missed it? It's the one marked with a 0.
> It prevents others from seeing my face
I'm sure it's a very nice face. What if you carry a photo of it on a necklace? Best of both worlds.
> over half of eligible Americans have received
"Eligible" is a weasel word in this context because it artificially constrains the set of people that you're taking into account who can breed and transmit mutated strains. Fewer than half of all Americans have received at least one shot so far. That is improving rapidly, of course, but there are also a number of mutated variants currently in the wild with more to come, and we should all want to stop them from gaining traction because we all want to live our lives.
The idea being thrown around that people should continue to wear masks for the rest of their lives is just not justifiable.
You appear to be focusing exclusively on individuals instead of on the fact that spreading to to those individuals also rolls the dice on new mutated strains that could kill another half million Americans and cause major vascular and neurologic harm in millions more, including those who are already vaccinated. Protecting the intransigent from themselves also protects everyone else.
> for the rest of their lives
This is a straw man. Everyone advocating for mask use has the goal of stamping out the disease so that wearing masks stops being clearly beneficial.
> The idea being thrown around that people should continue to wear masks ... is just not justifiable.
From a public health perspective it would be. On one side we have the potential for significantly reduced viral transmission (all oronasal-route viruses, not just COVID19) across populations and fewer people getting sick and dying every year, and on the other side we have your pretty smile. Everyone who decides that they can still interact socially without spitting on each other has actually a perfect justification for wanting everyone to continue using masks.
You appear to be communicating in very immediate self-oriented terms ("_I'm_ vaccinated", "odds of _me_ having", "_my_ face") while the people you're arguing against are focusing on a bigger scale of effect that accounts for what happens when the virus that killed more than half a million people in a year in the US alone and which appears to cause serious long-term harm in survivors is allowed to mutate in unvaccinated people.
I'm sorry my two sentences didn't cover every single nuance of the complicated topic!
I will say, I think there is value to wearing a mask even after being vaccinated, as a symbol of social cohesion, but I totally accept someone deciding that isn't a good enough reason to wear a mask. But, if you don't wear a mask because you've hit your vaccine resitence level, I don't think you're being selfish.
That said, I still support a business or individual's right to require all people to wear a mask on their premises. After all, it might be impractical for them to properly screen who has and hasn't worn a mask.
So this was shared by someone who claims to be an ICU doctor in Delhi - the prescriptions are not being written because they are medically necessary.
My family member with the lowest SpO2 is in the DRDO hospital is on Ivermectin + prednisone & a Dexa IV (& not remdesivir).
The rumour is that some doctor had his arm broken by a family member for not prescribing the remdesivir after the patient died.
So the doctors are writing prescriptions and asking the patients to source them, even if the hospital dispensary has the drug in storage, to avoid getting beaten up by the patients family.
This has created a complete black market for the drug, which vastly outstrips the demand and hopefully the doctors are probably just chucking whatever shady vial the family brings over instead of putting in a sick person.
What is surprising is misinformation around the variant when there isn't definitive evidence on its morbidity or contagion. The obvious cause is a population letting its guard down!
Not just mask up, but do it with proper masks. Majority wear cloth masks in the country if at all they do because they were the ones which were available widely(affordable) during the first wave and that there were some data to suggest it's better than nothing.
But many of those masks have worn out after repeated washing, I'm having a hard time making people switch to proper masks as they are not comfortable with them and naturally mask prices are starting to skyrocket again.
Proper masks needs to be distributed through the PDS (Public Distribution System), During first wave cloth mask was distributed through that in my state.
Then of course there's this,
> Chin-mask
Leaders like the home minister, Amit Shah [1] and the health minister Harsh Vardhan [2] have been saying that we are in the end stage from Jan. Starting vaccinations is not the end game. We opened up for crowds for a cricket match (57k) [3] and kumbh mela [4] (actively promoted by the state and central govt), where the latter was expecting crowd in millions. (10 lakhs is 1 million). Covid protocol could really not be followed with that crowd [11]. We literally had an Assam minister saying that masks weren't needed earlier this month[6]. And of course election rallies with big crowds [5]. PM Modi was exulting about a huge crowd just a few days ago [12] Amit Shah was actually saying these are not related to the spikes [13]
I'd actually lay the blame on these:
- Inconsistent messaging on safety precautions.
- Vaccine shortage and related slow vaccination drives. India did not give advance orders and stockpile vaccines [8]
- Oxygen shortage. We already know oxygen was needed. The govt didn't follow through and build capacity for oxygen plants. We floated tenders 8 months into the pandemic and didn't follow through [9]
- We did not pay attention to and sequence variants to stay on top of things. [10]
I could go on... we are short various medicines, facilities; state govts of Gujarat, UP, MP, Bihar were actively under reporting by sometimes more than 10x [13]- if you don't acknowledge the problem, you can't fix the problem; not opening up vaccinations to everyone and not letting in vaccines that were already approved outside (both until very recently); not listening to folks who were trying to point these out...
Apologies for the long response. But yea, I'm shocked at how bad things are, and, while I think people can follow rules better, I'd squarely lay the blame for this on the govt.
[1] https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/union-home-minister-amit-sha...
[2] https://www.indiatoday.in/coronavirus-outbreak/story/we-are-...
[3] https://www.thestadiumbusiness.com/2021/03/15/narendra-modi-...
[4] https://www.thequint.com/news/india/massive-crowd-gathers-fo...
[5] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/covid-has-a-...
[6] https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/assam-health-minister-himan...
[7] https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2020/dec/22/no-masks...
[8] https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/how-we-landed-in-covid-...
[9] https://scroll.in/article/992537/india-is-running-out-of-oxy...
[10] https://scroll.in/latest/990519/coronavirus-less-than-1-samp...
[11] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/maha-kumbh-m...
[12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5jzuE866lo
[13] https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1384782949879517185 (may have to go through the twitter link to access ft article)
https://californianewstimes.com/it-is-much-worse-this-time-i...
[1] https://science.thewire.in/health/icmr-defines-interval-for-...
[2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/covid-reinfection-rare-...
The vaccines effectiveness is (mostly) a factor of how well they prevent the disease COVID-19. It's NOT a direct indication of how well they prevent infection with SARS-CoV-2, since not all infections cause COVID-19 (some are asymptomatic) but it seems to be a reasonably close bound.
>Efficacy is the degree to which a vaccine prevents disease, and possibly also transmission, under ideal and controlled circumstances – comparing a vaccinated group with a placebo group. Effectiveness meanwhile refers to how well it performs in the real world.
Preventing "moderate symptoms", which is enough symptoms that the typical person would stay home from work.
"mild symptoms" means people notice they were more tired than usual, but otherwise didn't feel like it was bad enough to stay home.
"Severe" symptoms, which means people went to a hospital to get treated.
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The 74% and 95% numbers you quoted were against "moderate" symptoms in the Phase 3 trials. IIRC, all vaccines were 100% effective against "hospitalizations" and "death" (severe).
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With that being said, it seems like the asymptomatic effectiveness is something like 60% to 80% (depending on the vaccine). That is: if we constatly do COVID19 tests to check for ASYMPTOMATIC infection, we still see a major reduction in asymptomatic COVID19 in vaccinated individuals.
Very close to 100%, but not quite. In US state of Ohio, 2.8 million vaccinated, 14 hospitalizations from breakthrough cases, all folks with multiple co-morbidities that would have killed them. So, 14/2.8 million = about 99.9995 % over about two months.
Apologies if that was unclear. With only 30,000 people or 40,000 people in the phase 3 trial, its impossible to differentiate between 99.99% and 100%. We can only see how far above 99.99% we've gotten by deploying to the public.
In contrast, there have been anywhere from 1000 to 3000 deaths PER DAY due to COVID19. The only question remaining is: how far back do we go to count COVID19 deaths. Do you want to start in January, or do you want to start in February? Vaccination started in December, maybe we should include December deaths?
The month of February 2021 was well in excess of 50,000 COVID19 deaths. (2000 to 3000 COVID19 deaths per day every day through Feburary). Estimating that to a round number is ~70,000 or so.
74 breakout deaths vs 70,000-ish total deaths puts us in the 99% effective range already. And that's after I've "steelman" chosen lots of numbers not very favorable to my argument.
It seems like a verifiable fact that the vaccines are well in excess of 99% effective against death. How much so (99.9% or 99.99%???) is a mystery to be left for someone who is better at analyzing these statistics.
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The USA is currently experiencing 700 deaths/day due to COVID19. Its not over. As the death count of the unvaccinated population rises day-after-day, it will only make the safety results of the vaccine more and more certain.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/yes-vacci...
Governments are getting rightful blame. I think the media also don't help. How many stupid news outlets were saying that Indian people have some kind of genetic immunity to COVID with absolutely no evidence of any such thing? That affects people more than one wedding.
We had this problem in the USA, too. All these "mandates" flying around, and governments congratulating themselves over their stay-at-home "orders", yet very little to nothing in the way of enforcement. We seem to be able to enforce drunk driving and seatbelt laws, but when it comes to masks and preventing gatherings, we're flummoxed! Suddenly, nobody knows how to enforce the rules anymore!
Again, COVID restrictions ultimately require some kind of mandate from the people. If a country’s government is unable to legally impose restrictions within its current constitutional order, and it is unable to gather sufficient votes to amend the constitution, then it will simply have to limit itself to public-health measures that the people will accept.
In the context of the US, how does this differ from any other law? It sounds to me like this would lead to a situation where if people make it difficult enough to enforce the law then that law will stop applying to them.
Edit: grammar fix
On top of that, doctors here have created a craze for remdesivir, resulting in a blackmarket for it.
The central and state governments have mismanaged plenty of things. While they deserve their share of blame, the ordinary people have only made matters worse. Chin-mask, no-mask, herbal "remedies", religious gatherings, weddings, engagements, naming ceremonies... the list goes on.
As a truly perfect representative of the people, the chief minister here got COVID once, got vaccinated, and then got COVID a second time.