https://archive.is/VYm6A

The Indian Government had one job. Prepare for this crisis. They had one year to prepare for it. They did nothing apart from grandstanding,claiming credit for vaccines, and suggesting home remedies and cow urine (not joking) while telling each other that Indians are immune to this virus. These naratives played out across whatsapp groups and yoga guru channels. The health minister even endorsed some of these remedies on TV.

The Prime Minister appears on TV on a regular basis to take credit for all things from all time and sermonise. Rarely has he been insightful or organized. The cabinet of ministers they have also seem to have failed to knock some sense into the Prime Minister and his egotistical proclamations that have put India on to this path.

The death toll is likely to be vast and India should expect generational impact. A resolution will take time, a lot of pain, and lots of external help. In the meanwhile, Indian officials will fudge numbers while the truth is out there for everyone to see in the fires that burn all across India and possibly visbile from space. It's unfortunate that a lack of education leads to populations electing incapable leadership leading to horrendous after effects like these.

The fact that the official numbers are through the roof tell you how bad the unofficial (and real) numbers are.

In the past week, there have been reports from several cities where the number of Covid deaths are measured in single digits - yet crematoriums are so full that people have started cremating their dead ones on sidewalks.

This is what I feared the first time would be, but somehow the virus spared India. The first time around majority of the population was careful, masked up and stayed indoors. The death was super low. That caused people to get over confident, people believed that covid is not harmful in the country and they fully ignored it. Now there is an Indian variant of the virus which apparently and the infection rates and deaths are up.

Based on over a year's worth of global data, it is reasonable to highly correlate confirmed positive infections with death counts, with only the degree varying from 2% to 6%.

Using "official" numbers alone, and the exponential growth they have exhibited in the past week, it is impossible to deny that an unmitigated disaster is unfolding before our eyes in India.

Speculate and blame all you want, the situation is deadlier and more real than we have seen globally thus far.

It seems to me the most appropriate reaction is to be aghast, and ask "How can I help?"

The problem with subcontinent countries is that their citizens mostly believe in pseudo science promoted by religious celebrities. Yesterday I was reading that Baba Ram Dev has suggested to inhale olive oil which will push covid-19 virus in stomach where it'd be killed by stomach acid. Such ppl exist here in Pakistan too one way and other and I see ppl don't bother to use masks when going mosques. Not sure what kind of stuff do these guys smoke.

Many out here are saying that "the system has collapsed".

They are _SO_ wrong. We never _had_ a system to begin with, in the first place!

Our "system" is only _EXPOSED_ now, to the entire world.

What's seen and exposed now, is what had been operational for the last 30 odd years. Everything needs some strings to be pulled and some hands made warm with a stash of notes.

A nation full of mostly meek, timid, inherently corrupt people all of a sudden wondering that "our system has failed! uiuiuiui!"

Indian nation had a grand opportunity at getting better. The Indian public just shat on it and smeared cowdung listening to the right wing propaganda. Now, let them drown in cow-urine / dung.

This might sound like a dark humor but yesterday the issue of Oxygen shortage came up in Supreme Court of India. (For the uninitiated Indian Supreme Court acts a bit like village elder where they can give any random order to government for any reason even if there is no actual lawsuits under consideration.)

Supreme court asked Government what their plan to increase Oxygen supply is and if they are planning to import it. The government's response is that they have floated a "tender" and have received 3-4 quotes. (Note that, many hospitals in India right now have < 24 hours of Oxygen supply).

Supreme court then asked government to force steel and petrolium factories to divert their oxygen to hospitals because steel and petrolium is not important. :)

Lockdowns hurt poor people very badly; they need to earn to survive. All the more reason everyone should mask up. And yet, most people stopped masking months ago. Crowds are as bad as they were in 2019.

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.

Not surprising. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/12/india-thousands-joi...

Really worried for my parents and other relatives. They are being as safe as possible but the virus is everywhere now and not sure if they will be able to avoid it. What a tragedy that people just didn't mask up and avoid gatherings when the vaccines were so close.

This is due to new variant B.1.167 that has triple mutation. The variant appeared last December, I think, but surprisingly not much analysis has been done on vaccine effectiveness. This variant spreads far more faster and very likely vaccines have lower efficacy, but still protective enough to escape respirators. I would think this is going to spread elsewhere soon and lower vaccinated areas going to suffer same fate in coming months.

Indian Government needs to do something about this. Especially that it is happening all over the country, the death rate has reached its all-time high. This stat line might not even be accurate as people are dying remotely far away to the point that Governments are unaware.

How many people close their windows and use air conditioning in India nowadays? Is it that season now?

Non-paywall link: https://californianewstimes.com/it-is-much-worse-this-time-i...

It's not clear whether India got some new variant like we heard of UK variant?

It is sadly predictable that the pandemic would end up becoming a permanent source of havoc in less developed part of the world, even as it comes under control in the west. This will for certain be with us for many years to come and will further distort the difference between rich and poor. Not at least helped by the nationalism in the west in form of export controls and patents.

Lock down is needed in India for lot of the Morons in our country who were taking things so lightly after the first wave we all deserve the lock down so we can learn a hard lesson, and stupid people die of covid19.

The second wave is all because of the central & State Govt and people's foolishness & ignorance. Unfortunately its because of our stupidity its the people of the lower income class have to suffer the most, the daily wage miggrants & people who are contract employees. If only all the organizations took all the right steps we wouldnt have been in this situation. The entire govt mechanism failed from top to the grassroot level, local muncipalities did not bother and neither the people.

I hope at least this time, we all learn the lesson.

Modi regime in India procured 66 million Covishield/Covaxin units at an inflated price and exported them;

I just hope their killer variants dont make it across borders

Paywall.

India desperately needs some Leronlimab, 100X better than Remdesivir for severe/critical

I honestly don't think this is clearly understood by the authorities and they are causing more harm than good. We don't really yet understand Covid or the impact of specific policies like lockdowns, lack of other health inducing activities (exercise, essential vitamins, genetics, food quality, etc). More over, Stanford (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7680614/) has shown masks don't work. Lockdowns probably have a deleterious affect and we have yet to isolate and purify the Covid19 virus (CDC is being sued on this at the moment).

This in my opinion is data manipulation to push an agenda. India is probably fine. I call bullshit

The situation is also horrible in Brazil (14M cases, 378k deaths, ICUs near full): https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/brazil-alarming-high-num...

One can only wonder if it's simply a matter of time before variants break through vaccines in the US too.

Wearing mask might just delay getting the infection. I wore mask all the time, wfh and go out only for groceries, still got infected. And when the CM gets Covid a second time after vaccination anyone can get it even with mask or vaccination.

Why would you post an article behind pay wall ?

But why is it much worse ? Because of the pandemic, or because of the lockdowns ?

Not leading to deaths, but just increasing case numbers, that is good news.