Scrutable

hakwright wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 19, 2021 12:19 pm

Is it just me or do others find the recent explosion of cases in India truly terrifying? The number of new cases and new deaths per day has increased by an order of magnitude in just 6 weeks. I don't think we have seen anything like such a rapid acceleration of the virus in any other country before

hakwright wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 19, 2021 12:19 pm

I know the jury is still out on the double-mutation variant that has become dominant there in recent weeks, and whether it is largely responsible for the rapid explosion in cases. But is there any other candidate explanation for the unprecedented acceleration of the numbers in India?

hakwright wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 19, 2021 12:19 pm

Is it just me or do others find the recent explosion of cases in India truly terrifying? The number of new cases and new deaths per day has increased by an order of magnitude in just 6 weeks. I don't think we have seen anything like such a rapid acceleration of the virus in any other country before.

Sciolus wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:45 am

Thanks Chops. I hope you don't mind, hakwright, but I think this is interesting and important enough to deserve its own thread, rather than getting lost in the general megathread.

‘It is much worse this time’: India’s devastating second wave
New variant suspected of stoking surge that is overwhelming hospitals and crematoriums

[...]

Both the number of new cases and the percentage of positive tests are climbing at the fastest rate in the world, with the latter jumping from 3 per cent last month to 16 per cent.

[...]

The sick are overwhelming hospitals in many parts of the country. The rate of ICU patients in Nagpur at 353 per million is higher than it was anywhere in Europe during the pandemic. Mumbai, the financial capital, has 194 ICU patients per million.

To meet surging demand, authorities have set up emergency coronavirus hospitals in banquet halls, train stations and hotels. India has taken emergency measures to secure oxygen supplies, boost production of drugs such as remdesivir and fast-track vaccine approvals. It has frozen vaccine exports, too, a decision that will have profound consequences for the developing world that is depending on Indian manufacturing for its jabs.

A Financial Times analysis also points to under-reporting of deaths. Local news reports for seven districts across the states of Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar show that while at least 1,833 people are known to have died of Covid-19 in recent days, based mainly on cremations, only 228 have been officially reported.

In the Jamnagar district in Gujarat, 100 people died of Covid-19 but only one Covid death was reported.

The situation in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, a state of 200m that is among India’s poorest, highlights how health infrastructure has been pushed to breaking point. Local media reported that at King George’s Medical University, there was a queue of 50 people per hospital bed.

In many parts of the country including the capital Delhi, cases are doubling every five days. Compared to the steady rise seen in the first wave last year, the current climbs are almost vertical.

[...]

I collated local news reports (HT @muradbanaji) across seven districts, finding that overall, numbers of Covid victims who have been cremated are 10x larger than official Covid death counts in same areas.

[...]

If applied nationally, that would mean that instead of 1,700 deaths per day, India is currently seeing 17,000.

And as more reports come in, that undercounting estimate has been rising, so the true toll may be higher still.

hakwright wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 20, 2021 12:10 pm

Sciolus wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:45 am

Thanks Chops. I hope you don't mind, hakwright, but I think this is interesting and important enough to deserve its own thread, rather than getting lost in the general megathread.

No problem. I know there's a thread on the specific "UK/Kent" variant, but that didn't quite seem right for my post, so I just added to the general thread. Probably just laziness on my part not creating a suitable thread!

Following up on comments: the comparison of UK and India rates per population is interesting, but you can still see the India slope is somewhat larger (less obvious but more impactful given the log scale). I've compared the time taken for new cases to double, and for the UK in Dec/Jan get an average of 14 days, and for India (last month or so) get an average of a little over 11 days. Not a massive difference, but when that rate is sustained for longer periods, the impacts are clearly large.

The slums and population density factor is interesting. But wouldn't that have applied in the same way with India's first wave in Aug/September 2020?

There is clearly *something* different happening in India now compared with last year. I heard that within a matter of a few weeks, there should be enough evidence to make an assessment of the new India variant and whether it really is more contagious.

SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation in England
Technical briefing 9

raven wrote: ↑

Tue May 04, 2021 2:31 pm

f.ck. 10% in London.

And I was worried after I looked at the previous link. It's got a map of confirmed/probable cases and it's pretty widespread patches across England already. Only very low numbers, but still. And just as we're opening up too.

I guess the silver lining globally speaking is we can be the canary in the coal mine: if the Indian variant takes off here it'll be a good real world test of how effective Pfizer and AZ are against it.

OffTheRock wrote: ↑

Tue May 04, 2021 4:56 pm

Does this make the 'replace isolation with LFTs' experiment even dafter than it was before?

I doubt it'll take long for people to just start taking an LFT and then going out because it's fine for others to do it.

Woodchopper wrote: ↑

Tue May 04, 2021 2:51 pm

It looks like they think that Pfizer will still work: https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/a ... -1.1212637

Biggest issue now is the race to vaccinate before it spreads further.

Blood serum was collected from 12 people who had experienced symptomatic or asymptomatic infections from the Indian variant and fully recovered. Blood serum was also collected from a range of people who had been vaccinated.
All samples were tested to see how well they neutralised the Indian variant and both batches offered high levels of protection. The sera from recovered patients provided 87 per cent immunity and the sera of vaccine recipients 88 per cent.
Covaxin was the drug used in the study but further research is under way in the UK to determine whether a second dose of Pfizer or AstraZeneca works better at neutralising B1.617.

Woodchopper wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 24, 2021 9:31 pm

SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation in England
Technical briefing 9

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... ngland.pdf

“B.1.1.7 is really fit so we don’t know how these variants are actually going to play out when they’re in competition with another,” said Muge Cevik, a clinician and researcher in virology at the university of St Andrews.

B.1.1.7 was growing during a time when overall cases were on the rise, whereas B.1.617.2 is spreading at a time when overall numbers are falling, which has led some to fear that the current lockdown measures are not having the same impact.